Dare to Decide! by Soren Kierkegaard. If this can ever be, then one must look for a cure against it. Praise be to God that such a cure exists – to quietly make a decision. A decision joins us to the eternal. It brings what is eternal into time. A decision raises us with a shock from the slumber of monotony. A decision breaks the magic spell of custom. A decision breaks the long row of weary thoughts. A decision pronounces its blessing upon even the weakest beginning, as long as it is a real beginning. One could say that all this is very simple. Yet, our approach must begin differently from this. How wretched and miserable it is to find in a person many good intentions but few good deeds. So what about the decision, which was after all meant so very well? The path of an honest fighter is a difficult one.
In the end, the archenemy of decision is cowardice. And yet the separation of cowardice and pride is a false one, for these two are really one and the same. How? Cowardice wants to prevent the step of making a decision. In Our Time, Kierkegaard. Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand: with her bug-eyed stare and her extremely sharp shoulder pads, many proclaimed her to be the perfect woman.
“Feed the rich, starve the poor, 'till there are, no poor no more.” “The worst part of Ms. Rand's parties was Mr. Greenspan running around naked in the lobby.”~ Doorman at 36 E 36th Street on Ayn Rand “Changing the definitions of terms is fun!” Ayn Rand (born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, February 2 [O.S. Ayn Rand herself is a controversial figure, being the only known example in history of someone who was completely self-made. She didn't need anybody at all. Ever. For anything. edit Early Life Children: According to reports, Ayn Rand used to be a child at one point. Ayn Rand gave birth to herself in Czarian Russia, just to show that she was tough enough. Ayn was known for her ability to make her own clothes from raw materials. Ayn's solitary life came to an end when she was forced by the new communist government to share her individuality with the state. Edit Early Fiction It bad.
On Sartre & Bad Faith. Jean-Paul Sartre summary. 1. EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE. "Freedom is existence, and in it existence precedes essence. " This means that what we do, how we act in our life, determines our apparent "qualities. " It is not that someone tells the truth because she is honest, but rather she defines herself as honest by telling the truth again and again.
I am a professor in a way different than the way I am six feet tall, or the way a table is a table. The table simply is; I exist by defining myself in the world at each moment. 2. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. Kant & 19th Century Philosophy. Philosophy 304 Kant and the 19 th Century Spring 2005 Office Hours: T 4-5, W 8-9, Th 9-11 Olin Hall 151 frierspr@whitman.edu Books: Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant) Kant, Practical Philosophy (Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant) Hegel, Selections (edited by M.J.
Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (Dover edition). Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (Kaufman translation) Assignments: (1) Quizzes and Cold Calls (10%). This course requires reading a lot of very difficult material. . (2) Short Papers (2 x 10% = 20%). During the first part of the semester, you will write two short papers on questions printed in your syllabus. . (3) Long Papers (2 x 20% = 40%) 1600 – 2500 words. The topics for these papers are somewhat open. Possible paper topics: What is philosophy? What are the limits, if any, to human knowledge? What is the highest good for a human beingd?
What is true freedom? What is beauty? (4) Final paper or Exam (30%). Timeline. HEIDEGGER - THE END OF PHILOSOPHY & THE TASK OF THINKING. Albert Einstein: Becoming a Freethinker. Taken from: Albert Einstein's Autobiographical Notes Open Court Publishing Company, LaSalle and Chicago, Illinois, 1979. pp 3-5. When I was a fairly precocious young man I became thoroughly impressed with the futility of the hopes and strivings that chase most men restlessly through life. Moreover, I soon discovered the cruelty of that chase, which in those years was much more carefully covered up by hypocrisy and glittering words than is the case today. As the first way out there was religion, which is implanted into every child by way of the traditional education-machine. It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which was thus lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the "merely personal," from an existence dominated by wishes, hopes, and primitive feelings.
Philosophy is Bullshit: David Hume. Next: You Are Your Axioms: Up: Axioms as the Basis Previous: Axioms Contents Much of the prose so colorfully presented above is not terribly idea-original. The perceptive reader will observe that I've read and been influenced by many philosophers and thinkers of years past. Yes, I've digested my Plato, barfed up my Aristotle, danced with Descartes, listened to falling trees in the forest with Berkeley and God together, been smacked by Johnson, laughed hysterically at the Germans, nodded thoughtfully at the Vedas and some aspects of Bhuddism, Taoism, and Zen, and wept quietly as Philosophy attempted to pretend that the greatest philopher, the seal of the philosophers as Mohammed is supposedly the seal of the prophets, never wrote the essays that destroyed the fundamental basis of philosophy as it was known up to that time. I refer, of course, to David Hume. Now, if you've studied philosophy, you'll know who Hume is and what he did.
The rest of you, listen up now. These Axioms are True.
Bertrand Russell. Nietzsche.