In his writings, C. Wright Mills suggested that people feel a kind of entrapment in their daily lives. He explains that since they must look at their life in a narrow scope or context – one’s role as a father, employee, neighbor, etc. – one catches glimpses of various “scenes” which they are a part…
Chapter 3 in Wadsworth is an essay by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in which they discuss the division of society. The essay begins, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” (Wadsworth, 2011) This statement is one of the foundational beliefs of Communism, which includes the theory that society…
In his essay, On Being Sane in Insane Places, D. L. Rosenhan discusses a series of experiments that he participated in involving psychiatric institutions and the effect of misdiagnoses of psychological disorders on the patients admitted to the hospitals. Rosenhan’s research shows us that the labels associated with mental illness (particularly schizophrenia) have a significant…
1. Culture – the total way of life shared by members of a society, including language, values, and material objects. 2. Society – population that shares the same territory and is bound together by economic and political ties. 3. Values – shared ideas about desirable goals. 4. Norms – shared rules of conduct that specify…
In sociology, the terms social movement and collective behavior are closely related. Both terms address both the way we behave in large groups as well as the end result we have in mind. However, they are slightly different in regards to when and how they occur. According to Brinkerhoff, a social movement is defined as “an ongoing, goal-directed effort…
In the modern world, there is a direct link between prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice is defined as the unjustified negative attitudes that some people hold against others of a certain group of people. Prejudice can include attitudes such as sexism, racism, homophobia, and religious persecution. Prejudices are pre-formed and have no reasonable basis. Discrimination includes all…
Principle 1 – All humans are sacred, whatever their culture, race, religion, whatever their capacities and incapacities, whatever their strengths and weaknesses may be. All of us need help in order to become all that we may be. For example, if we are going through a hard time in our life, we need all the…
Sacraments are not performed in isolation. The Church has a mission to offer a special type of life and a special type of memory. It brings to memory the event of Jesus Christ and invites us to become part of this. As with all symbols and rites, the Church’s sacraments have a body and a…
In order to be able to evaluate how we can have thought without language, it is necessary to define the terms. Thought is generally considered to be what goes on in our minds when we want to carry out an action. It’s quite a complex notion to comprehend but it simply is how we evaluate…
One of thing things that is common to all of mankind and has been for all of recorded history is the presence of musical ability and expression. Music has transcended throughout every era and every culture and has been constantly changing and evolving alongside with humans. It has played such a significant role in the…
Some call Friedrich Nietzsche the father of the Nazi party. Was Nietzsche’s ideas twisted and warped by a needy country? Nietzsche himself despised the middle and lower class people. Was it Nietzsche’s Will to Power theory that spawned one of the greatest patriotic movements of the twentieth century? These are some of the questions I…
Aristotle’s thoughts on Zeno’s Arrow Argument as represented in Chapter 9 of Aristotle’s Physics: A Guided Study can be understood in such a way that it might not be “next door to madness”. In this chapter, Aristotle interprets Zeno’s argument of the Flying Arrow as “missing the mark”. There are four premises for this argument,…
Morality, Kant says, cannot be regarded as a set of rules which prescribe the means necessary to the achievement of a given end; its rules must be obeyed without consideration of the consequences that will follow from doing so or not. A principle that presupposes a desired object as the determinant of the will cannot…
Born: 1844. Rocken, Germany Died: 1900. Weimar, Germany Major Works: The Gay Science (1882), Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-1885), Beyond Good & Evil (1886), On the Genealogy of Morals (1887), THE PHILOSOPHY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Sometimes philosophy is called “timeless,” implying that it’s lessons are of value to any generation. This may be hard to see…
For centuries, the idea of God has been a part of humanity’s history. Past and present, there has always been a different integration consisting of the believers and the non-believers of God. The group of those who have “faith” in God tends to be related to one religion or another. On the other hand, the…
The wax passage itself is a simple piece of writing, and a simple train of thought to follow. The essence of the passage is that Descartes believes, and attempts to convince the reader that the “clear and distinct” ideas one might have of objects external to one’s body are not perceived through the senses, but…
Being a foundationalist, Descartes needs to destroy the foundations of his beliefs so that in his Meditations he will be able to build upon new foundations of undeniable and self evident truths. In order to do this Descartes must first find a valid argument that will allow him to doubt his foundation beliefs and in…
In his early years of writing, Karl Marx’s ideas were similar to American Pragmatism, especially his ideas about epistemology. He defines truth in a pragmatic fashion and explains cognition in terms of practical needs of the human being. While some of his ideas were not followed to their logical conclusion, nor made sense, the fundamentals…
Theory: That all children develop certain behavioural characteristics that are dependent on whether they are youngest, middle, oldest or only children. The Only Child: Keen on facts, ideas and details A ‘mover and shaker’ in their work Unforgiving and demanding Doesn’t handle criticism well Lonely and spoiled The Youngest Child: Likes entertaining and showing off…
1. You can always tell when someone is experiencing a mental illness. MYTH: Not all people who look or act differently are mentally ill. Some people who exhibit eccentric behaviour and mannerisms do so as a matter of choice and not because of mental illness. 2. People with mental illnesses are to blame for their…