The nature of knowledge essay sample

Pre-Socratics observe and seek to define physical phenomena. Socrates studied human behavior and tried to determine the essential nature of knowledge. Aristotle sought to categorize his observations. The Scientific Revolution Newtonian influences Freudian influence

Skepticism
Realism
Conceptualism
Nominalism
Empiricism
Rationalism
Absolute Idealism
Existentialism
Phenomenology
Hermeneutics
Structuralism
Deconstruction
Critical Theory
Pragmatism
Behaviorism
Functionalism

Thales, Anaximander,
Anaximenes,
Leucippus,
Democritus,
Socrates,
Plato,
Aristotle,
Pyrrho,
Descartes,
Locke,
Berkeley,
Hume,
Kant,

What is knowledge?
What can be known?
Is knowledge possible?
How do we attain knowledge?
Can we trust our memory?
How does language affect what we know?
Week 3 Metaphysics

Metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and body, substance, and accident, events, and causation.

Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity is considered by many to be based in metaphysics but was adopted into physics because of its significance.

Cosmology, Ontology, Natural Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Mind, Perception

Aristotle, Plato, George Berkeley, Anne Conway, Olivia Sabuco de Nantes, Benedictus de Spinoza, Émilie du Châtelet, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes

What is the nature of reality?
What is the nature of the self?
How are the mind and body related to each
other?
Do we have personal freedom or are our
choices limited?
What are the arguments for and against the
existence of God?
Is there life after death?
Does life have meaning?
Week 4
Moral

The philosophical study of moral judgments—value judgments about what is virtuous or base, just or unjust, morally right or wrong, morally good or bad or evil, morally proper or improper.

Looking at humans, how ethics should be applied through historical precedence? Movement from Greece to modernity asking about meta-ethics and naturalistic fallacies.

Hedonism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Meta-Ethics, Normative Ethics, Descriptive Ethics, Relational Ethics, Applied Ethics, Evolutionary and Military Ethics

Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Immanuel Kant, Epicurus, Epictetus, Thomas Hobbs, John Stuart Mill, David Hume, Sophists, Zeno

What determines morality? Does historical precedent define ethics? How does self-actualization fit in with the paradigm of ethics? What condition is benefited by human reasoning and choice? Social

The ways in which people group together or otherwise act in union, topics can include fashion, fads, cults, crowds, and so forth. In Greece understanding the patterns and nuances of society and effect on humans; moving through political and social changes and how the complexity of society if tempered. Situationism, Individualism, Philosophy of Language, Social Epistemology, Philosophy of Social Science, Philosophy of Law Socrates, Plato, Chanakya, Confusius, Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, Bentham, Mill, Hegel, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Freud, Jung, De Beauvoir, Chomsky, Sontag, Marcuse What are the meanings of laws, the social contract, and revolt? What are the effects of science on culture, what is accountability? What happens when human demographics change? Political

The study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed. Changes in the urban structure and structure of society have complicated the legitimacy of law and legalisms. Capitalism, Communism, Marxism, Stalinism, Maoism, Socialism, Colonialism, Utilitarianism, Frankfurt School, Structuralism, Liberalism-Communitarianism, Natural Law Plato, Confusious, Socrates, Aristotle, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Montesque, Hume, Rosseau, Kant, Adam Smith, Burke, Paine, Mill, Marx, Mussolini, Dewy, Marcuse, Arendt, Hegel, Kateb, Macedo What political systems allow the greatest self-actualization for humans? How do political systems develop and receive legitimacy? What rational choices do structured political systems allow? How it is that human can live together in a legal, just, and political world?