Philosophy Final

The nature of reality in philosophy as discourse has been explained by the monist theory which affirms that thought and being are the same. The monist view holds that thoughts contain substance and attributes of substance which are supposed to be distinct from the outside of these thoughts. According to Kant a proponent of this theory, human mind knows and can only know phenomena that is pure mental affectionate and which forms by synthetic power of the mind. In general the monist regards dualism depreciatingly as the first philosophy of man and that the human mind shape reality.

Thus because reality is greatly influenced by the human knowledge, philosophical studies have focused on the nature and limitation of human knowledge. The debate on the limitation of human knowledge grew from a human curiosity of trying to establish whether their inner representations were accurate. According to these debates, a claim to knowledge is a claim to have justified belief but this is rarely the case as we often appeal to the proper functioning of our organism as justification. This is supported by the fact that we sometimes justify a belief by giving case examples. An often asked world view question is why human being s should think that chronological or composition relations between ideas conceived of as events in inner space could tell us about the logical relations between prepositions. In addition human beings differ in intellectual and intuitive capacities.

Thus human knowledge represents aspects of the world either real or hypothetical that we often think about by setting up mental model of the things that we often think about. If the model corresponds to some aspect of reality, it gives accurate understanding but if the model does not correspond well then a false conclusion is reached. However (Philip 36) argues that it is impossible to join together the idea of mental model with idea of limited capacity to create possible explanations for some of our errors in reasoning.

Science on the other hand is linked to logic and rationality. Thus most philosophical scholars argue that science is the name of that form of representation in which the truth and reason know themselves most fully. Consequently science is not an original happening of truth, but always the cultivation of a domain of truth already opened. In deed science call for questioning from whatever vantage point and can be taken as the science of verifying ideologies with empirical observations which are recorded through scientific ethical requirements.

However ethics differs considerably in application from one discourse to the other. Thus to explain the nature of ethics and their limitation, philosophers employ the theory of relativism. This is because in philosophy ethics deals with the right and wrong which vary from society to another because right and wrong are influenced by cultural perceptions. Ethical principles according to relativistic theorists are faced by limitation when exposed to foreign culture and thus ethics in philosophy are therefore based on objective view which advocates fairness to all. Thus this theoretical approach suggest that ethical principles are limited in application because their viability depend with the context of the situation at hand because you cannot impose one group's opinion onto another group due to differing perceptions of right and wrong. Thus ethical ideas assume that there is clear distinction between the outlook of one group and the outlook of all others which often lead to a good life.

Good life according to (Herbert 132) is associated with fulfillment of the will of God which is based on natural morality. He thus argued that human beings are God's creatures and what is good for them must have theological implication. His arguments suggest that there are sound ways of thinking about what we do without putting special reference to any particular religious belief. Thus most arguments in morality appeals to intellectual honesty and the great test of intellectual honesty is logical coherence. However ethical conclusion cannot be deduced from purely factual premises. Thus value judgment demonstrate a good life and therefore, good life is based on good morality which embraces relevant values and normative expectations without being subjective or without embracing any form of bias in decision making. Indeed it is out of good life that a good society emerges.

The question that is frequently asked in philosophy is what is a good society? Thus to tackle this world view question, philosophers employed a political theory. According to the proponent of the political theorists, as long as individuals respect the freedom of others, then they should be free to plan their own lives and to pursue the lives that their plan. In addition conceptions of neutrality and equality form the bases of political decisions in a good society. A good society according to this model is therefore demonstrated by provision of policies which accord as well as redistribute resources in fair and equitable manner. Thus indeed a good society embraces morality as their core virtues and fairness to all is a key value.

However the collective morality always threatens individual freedom especially when the freedom contravenes the basic norms.  The question of determinism is connected with Aristotle's theory of logical determinism whose basic idea is that in some ways the present truth of future things makes these things necessary and hence determines them. This idea is shared by the Hellenistic model which suggests that there is right for a logic model. The right theoretical model specifically specify what is necessary and what is possible in the world and thereby to what extent individual events in the world are necessitated. In general the freedom verses determinism theoretical explanation are concerned about moving the society forward in fair and morally appropriate context since philosophy is based on ethical altruism or the concept of being and doing good to others.

However despite the association between religion and morality, philosophers argue that the evidence for our experience with God is not empirical or logical but spiritual and divine in nature. According to Anselm, even the atheists have a definition for God even though they object his existence. Therefore according to philosophers God exist only in the human mind and thus the existence of God is rooted in the fear of the unknown. On the other hand (Taylor 96) suggested that religion emerged as result of the human curiosity and that the first ever known religious belief was the belief in soul which evolved to the current world belief in God. Thus in deed the meaning of life is anchored in religion and morality.

According to the protestant view as pointed out by philosophers, life is about beneficence of God. This according to (Burtlar 22) means that the only moral excellence we can clearly conceive in God is benevolence. In effect the protestant answer for the meaning of life supposes centre on man and his good deeds and that man should embrace love, mercy besides walking humbly. This philosophical therefore argues that life is about doing well to us and to others. Thus in general, a common theme in all the theoretical explanations is that philosophy according to them is based on logic or rationality. This rationality however is relativistic in nature due to the existence of divergent social perceptions which are shaped by human experience. Also morality seem to be anchored in good judgments which are non subjective in nature and often free from social bias. On the other hand reality is based on the everyday experience and anything that result to empirical outcome may be considered as embracing reality even though other theories differs with this position.

A philosophy of life that emerges from the theoretical models above is that morality is based on reality which exists in human thoughts and action. Thus reality is anchored in ethics which are defined as the normative expectations which community members must subscribe for coherency to be achieved in any society.  Thus even though the element of relativism exist in philosophy, the code of ethical altruism which advocate for fairness to all, offers a clear guideline on how one can live a good life as well as the elements of a good society.

On the other hand the fundamental similarity in philosophical work calls for a fair society where every individual is treated in manners that preserve his pride and human dignity. Another similarity is that philosophy embraces objectivity in its effect.

A major fundamental difference lies in its position on the existence of God where some philosophers denounce the argument that God actually exists in the human mind while others have shied off from this argument by stating that everything in life must be based on empirical observation and thus reality should not contradict science.

The major benefit of this class is that now I have a proper understanding on the role of rationality or logic in the moral ethical requirement and that the goals of morality is to create a highly coherent social environment.

However despite the diverse knowledge acquired in this class my position in the existence of God remains unchanged. In conclusion I would define wisdom as the ability of being able to differentiate between right and wrong.