Free Essays on In Excess We Trust

In Liz Spayd’s essay In Excess We Trust, she states, â€Å"to be is to consume.† I believe she has come up with some very supportive details for her case, and makes a very good argument about us as American consumers. With the facts that she has presented I would agree with her viewpoints. I myself consume more then I need, and have witnessed many other people guilty of over consuming. Americans today consume more goods as a whole then we did twenty years ago. We also earn more money per household, which is proven statistically. She examines how the wealthy and poor buy a lot more than what is necessary. Everyone is screaming for more, and sometimes we still cannot get enough. We use our monthly paychecks to buy things we cannot even afford. Like going to the local Best Buy and upgrading your 27† TV to the new 72† Plasma set. This will only take four years to pay off, but having this new TV will make your life so much better. Knowing that Visa will always give you a bigger spending limit so we can go out and purchase the goods we think we need right away, and worry about paying for it later. When it comes to shopping I can tell you first hand that Americans have a knack for spending money. I know that when I go out shopping I never put a limit on how much I will spend if I find the right items. This is a terrible thing because I probably only use half of the items I purchase. Whether it is clothes, toiletries, or food there is always something that I don’t use. When I went to Old Navy’s clearance sale two months ago I found a lot of items that I just had to have. When I was done shopping I rang up a bill of over $200.00, and I now had 8 new shirts, 4 pairs of pants, and a duffle bag. At the time it seemed that I couldn’t live without them, but now there is six new shirts and a pair of jeans sitting in my closet that still have the tags on them. I know there are other people like me that will not stop at... Free Essays on In Excess We Trust Free Essays on In Excess We Trust In Liz Spayd’s essay In Excess We Trust, she states, â€Å"to be is to consume.† I believe she has come up with some very supportive details for her case, and makes a very good argument about us as American consumers. With the facts that she has presented I would agree with her viewpoints. I myself consume more then I need, and have witnessed many other people guilty of over consuming. Americans today consume more goods as a whole then we did twenty years ago. We also earn more money per household, which is proven statistically. She examines how the wealthy and poor buy a lot more than what is necessary. Everyone is screaming for more, and sometimes we still cannot get enough. We use our monthly paychecks to buy things we cannot even afford. Like going to the local Best Buy and upgrading your 27† TV to the new 72† Plasma set. This will only take four years to pay off, but having this new TV will make your life so much better. Knowing that Visa will always give you a bigger spending limit so we can go out and purchase the goods we think we need right away, and worry about paying for it later. When it comes to shopping I can tell you first hand that Americans have a knack for spending money. I know that when I go out shopping I never put a limit on how much I will spend if I find the right items. This is a terrible thing because I probably only use half of the items I purchase. Whether it is clothes, toiletries, or food there is always something that I don’t use. When I went to Old Navy’s clearance sale two months ago I found a lot of items that I just had to have. When I was done shopping I rang up a bill of over $200.00, and I now had 8 new shirts, 4 pairs of pants, and a duffle bag. At the time it seemed that I couldn’t live without them, but now there is six new shirts and a pair of jeans sitting in my closet that still have the tags on them. I know there are other people like me that will not stop at...

Essays on Plato and Aristotle

Essays on Plato and Aristotle Essays on Plato and Aristotle Essays on Plato and AristotleThe name of Aristotle is for many generations associated with great ideas and contribution into metaphysical, political, ethical views in the field of philosophy, as well as biology, botany, mathematics, medicine and agriculture. He was one of Plato’s students, who however finally rejected his theory of forms and was considered by most researchers more empirically-minded than Plato and his teacher – Socrates. Aristotle introduced new ideas into the most of spheres of life, which he worked with. In total this philosopher produced around 200 treatises, out of which only 31 were saved for future generations. Mostly, these were lectures, some drafts, notes, manuscripts, which are said to lack the general prose style, used by Aristotle. A great contribution he maid into the sphere of mathematics and biology, moreover some of the classifications, he suggested, are in use till nowadays.   Further in this paper we are going to study the key views of Aristotle in the fields of metaphysics, ethics, politics, epistemology in comparison to other his contemporaries and philosophers.The name metaphysics was given to the works of Aristotle on first philosophy. Aristotle treats philosophy starting from its historical appearance, according to him, it developed as soon as all the basic human needs were secured. Religion could answer all the life questions of an individual only partially, and thus the constant feelings of curiosity provided a good ground for the development of the philosophical views and ideas. Socrates is considered to be one of the first philosophers, contributing to â€Å"the expression of general conceptions in the form of definitions, which he arrived at by induction and analogy† (Ackrill, 1997). Aristotle in his turn understood metaphysics, as the combination of the first principles of scientific knowledge, the unique condition for the whole existing world. For his metaphysics deals directly with being as being, involving at the same time all the attributes to the process of being. This means, that for example in mathematics the being is described with the help of lines and angles, in reality existence is not included as it is in itself. The character of metaphysics is rather universal, that is why it is often compared to sophistry or dialectics. The key difference between metaphysics and dialectics is in its preliminary character; from sophistry it differs due to non-consideration of reality for formulating the basis of knowledge. According to Aristotle there are a lot of universal truths. â€Å"Against the followers of Heraclitus and Protagoras, Aristotle defends both the laws of contradiction, and that of excluded middle. He does this by showing that their denial is suicidal. Carried out to its logical consequences, the denial of these laws would lead to the sameness of all facts and all assertions. It would also result in indifference in conduct† (Adler, 1978). The main qu estion, asked in the metaphysics of Aristotle is the following – what is understood under the actual substance? Plato stated that the universal element of knowledge and existence are the corresponding forms which remain permanent, when the senses change. Aristotle didn’t agree with this position. He argued that forms do not have the necessary power to explain what changes happen to things. Neither could they be responsible for realization, of how people come to certain knowledge about some special things. The last weak point of this theory Aristotle found in the lack of special forms for explaining our knowledge about art and its objects. Aristotle could not agree with the existence of some abstract forms, as he understood the form rather inside the phenomena of sense; the real being as a concrete thing, and not an abstract form.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"In the Metaphysics, though, it frequently inclines towards realism (that is, substance has a real existence in itself)† (Adl er, 1978). He used causes in order to explain the relations between one and many, which seemed so difficult for most philosophers before. According to him there are four causes â€Å"Material cause, or the elements  out of which an object is created; Efficient cause, or the means  by which it is created; Formal cause, or the expression of  what it is; Final cause, or the end  for which it is† (Adler, 1978). Aristotle really managed to treat the problems of metaphysics deeper than his teacher, introducing a number of interesting ideas and approaches.The aim of the Aristotle’s philosophy was the universal, the same like by his teacher – Plato. But the difference was that he found the universal in special things, he referred to it as essence of things; for Plato the universal was not included into the particular things, but building a separate prototype. Epistemology of Aristotle is guided by the study of particular things and then coming to the knowledge o f essences. â€Å"For Aristotle, form still refers to the unconditional basis of phenomena but is instantiated in a particular substance (see Universals and particulars, below). In a certain sense, Aristotles method is both inductive and deductive, while Platos is essentially deductive from a priori principles† (Ackrill, 1997).Aristotle introduced the notion â€Å"natural philosophy† as a branch of philosophy, conducting studies of natural world and its phenomena; nowadays these are such disciplines as biology or physics and so on. Nowadays however the studies of natural world are not related to philosophy, which is actually occupied with such issues as ethics, logic, metaphysics. Aristotle made a clear difference between â€Å"science† and â€Å"scientific method†, as for him â€Å"all science (dianoia) is either practical, poetical or theoretical (Ackrill, 1997). By practical science, he means ethics and politics; by poetical science, he means the stud y of poetry and the other fine arts; by theoretical science, he means physics, mathematics and metaphysics† (Adler, 1978). Aristotle paid a great attention to studies of the objects of natural world, science. His contributions to mathematics were not considerable enough in comparison to his researches in the fields of zoology, botany, chemistry, astronomy.Aristotle studied the issues of ethics, viewing it as a try to find out the highest good. This main end is usually referred to as happiness. Happiness is related to some personal experience, which causes immediate controversy to the theory of Plato of self-existing good. The good should be practical, present in the lives of individuals. It can not be substituted with vegetative life, the one which plants have, neither with the sensitive life of animals. â€Å"It follows therefore that true happiness lies in the active life of a rational being or in a perfect realization and outworking of the true soul and self, continued thr oughout a lifetime† (Ackrill, 1997).Essays on Plato and Aristotle part 2

Team Assignment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Team Assignment - Essay Example It advocates for doing the right thing regardless of whether it is causing any harm. In regards to the theories the leading advocates include; Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) who started the utilitarianism. He stated that the morally upright thing to do is that of not harming other people and bringing about happiness. Other Classical Utilitarianism starters include Richard Cumberland (1631-1718), John Gay (1699-1745). On the other hand Kantianism theory was introduced by Immanuel Kant (Melden, 2008). Cultural relativism is defined as a standard initiated by Franz Boaz which indicates that people’s ideas and opinions are factual in accordance to the civilization they are in. Cultural relativism shows that customs, beliefs as well as ethics that are related to a person in the society he is in. simply put is that wrong and right are classified in terms of a person’s culture (Melden, 2008). It shows that no culture is better than the other. In regards to individual relativism this means that a person’s beliefs and opinions are strictly what they believe to be true. Individual relativists usually take what he believes in extremely seriously. Looking at the comparison to the ethical relativism to the traditional theories is easy to see that there are some distinctive differences and some similarities. By definition ethical relativism means that there is a tendency of people making decisions that are ethical based on what they see fit in accordance to their beliefs. Traditional approaches can be classified into two; consequentialism and non-consequentialism (Melden, 2008). Consequentialism means that actions that are right or wrong depend on the consequences; on the other hand non-consequentialism dictates that a wrong or right action does not depend on the consequences. In light of this ethical relativism contradicts with the traditional theories in that the beliefs are not based on the culture one comes