Greek Mythology and Platos Concept of the Soul Essay

Greek Mythology and Platos Concept of the Soul - Essay Example Platonic philosophy views the immortal soul and the body as separate entities. At death, the body decomposes and merges with the elements from which it was created but the soul is imperishable. This brings me to the point of linkage. To what degree was Plato influenced by Greek religious beliefs involving the immortality of the soul and what did Plato think of the afterlife compared to the earlier Greek religious beliefs about it? I cannot actually know this exactly but I can and will look at what Plato was reacting to. The Greek word for soul is psyche. Through the ages, the word psyche stayed the same but the meaning changed. My claim is that Plato’s idea of the soul differed from the earlier view expressed in Homer’s epics and other myths and he almost always chose the opposite position to Homer’s writings. Throughout the dialogues, Plato often argues against and almost ridicules Homer’s text, stepping outside the Greek societal box of thinking about the soul. Plato’s theory differs to that of the earlier Greek times because it portrayed the soul as being immortal and the means to knowledge. He did not associate the word psyche with de ath as did Homer. Hendrik Lorenz comments, â€Å"From comparatively humble beginnings, the word ‘soul’ undergoes quite a remarkable semantic expansion in sixth and fifth century usage. By the end of the fifth century -- the time of Socrates’ death-- the soul is standard thought and spoken of as the distinguishing mark of living things, as something that is the subject of emotional states and that is responsible for planning and practical thinking, and also as the bearer of such virtues as courage and justice.†1 Through the ages, Greek society associated the soul or psyche with the idea of death. The ancient Greeks’ religious beliefs were not prescribed in code on a set of tablets or papyri but rather passed down

Scientific method Essay Example for Free

Scientific method Essay Outline and illustrate three characteristics of sense-data. (15 marks) Anticipate the following characteristics: †¢ We are immediately/directly acquainted with sense-data, (from which we infer a mindindependent reality). †¢ Sense-data are (usually) mental or mind-dependent. †¢ Sense-data exist only as they are perceived. †¢ Reports regarding sense-data are incorrigible. †¢ Sense-data are nothing other than how they appear – they have no hidden depths. †¢ The sense-data I experience will vary according to the conditions in which I perceive an object. †¢ Sense-data, unlike physical objects, can have indeterminate process. †¢ Sense-data and physical objects/distinguishing sense-data. Illustrate examples are likely to differ depending on the points being made and can be drawn from various sources: Illusions and delusions (e. g. bent sticks, mirage, hallucinations), perceptual relativity (the real shape of the coin, the real properties of the table), phenomenology (apparent and real speckled hens) or time-lag arguments (seeing the ‘sun’) that distinguish between the way the world appears and the way it is. Consider the claim that the weaknesses of representative realism outweigh its strengths. (30 marks) Knowledge and Understanding Anticipate the following outline of representative realism: There is a material reality independent of our perception of it – an external world – from which experience originates. But our perception of material objects is mediated via ‘ a veil of perception’. Our immediate awareness is of an ‘internal’ non-material something – ‘ideas’ or sense-data – that we take as representative of mind independent external reality. The claim that there is an external world is a hypothesis. Interpretation, Analysis and Application Possible strengths †¢ Unlike common sense, representative realism can account for illusions/hallucinations by proposing we experience ideas/sense-data. †¢ Representative Realism gets the epistemological project right: I have to start from my own ‘experience’ and work outward to an external world. †¢ Representative Realism acknowledges the scientific claim that mind-independent reality is not as it appears to us (and the primary/secondary qualities distinction might be used here to articulate this point.) †¢ Representative realism acknowledges a distinction between appearance and reality but it is able to counter scepticism: it is reasonable to suppose that there is a mindindependent reality that impinges upon me in systematic ways, not subject to will, which my experience ‘represents’ in ways similar to your experience. Possible weaknesses †¢ Representative Realism is incompatible with Empiricism because it makes claims about mind-independent reality that transcend any possible experience: it makes empty assertions devoid of empirical consequences (e.g. ‘a something we know not what’); it illegitimately draws inferences from familiar experience (e. g. observations of casual relations) to support judgements regarding a reality that ‘must be strange’ (Russell). †¢ The apparatus employed by representative realism cannot avoid scepticism: a veil of perception intermediate between object and perceiver opens up an unbridgeable gap. †¢ Representative Realism (at least in its ‘pure’ empiricist form) does not have the resources to escape solipsism. †¢ The scientific appearance/reality distinction need not have any exceptional ‘philosophical significance regarding what there is; it just regulates what counts as relevant/irrelevant when scientists do science (c. f. demarcation issues like ‘Are we doing psychology or sociology? ’ ‘Is that a philosophical point of history? ’). †¢ A candidate might compare representative realism with other positions (e. g. idealism) just as long as the comparison highlights possible strengths and weaknesses of representative realism. †¢ Appeals to Occam’s Razor. Both direct realism and idealism are ontologically parsimonious contra representative realism. Assessment and Evaluation A candidate could argue for the following conclusions: †¢ The weaknesses outweigh the strengths †¢ The strengths outweigh the weaknesses †¢ The strengths and weaknesses balance out, more or less. †¢ Drawing out the implications of ‘something we know not what’ as Berkeley was to do. †¢ Support of direct realism e. g. exceptions can be allowed if they can be explained, correction by other senses. †¢ Presuppositions of recognising deceptions, †¢ Reid’s criticism of phenomenal variability – we can explain and predict. †¢ External world seen as hypothetical, but is this like a scientific hypothesis? Verification issues. †¢ How could we have the concept of a representation if we are only aware of representations. Analysis of how the concept works. †¢ If we cannot know physical objects, then neither can we know their causal powers. †¢ The external world could never be more than a probability. But how do we do the calculations needed for such a claim?

Effects of Organizational Culture on Police Decision Making Essay

This essay discusses the effects of the police organizational culture on a Police officer’s ability to make independent decisions. Every culture is composed of four elements: â€Å"values, norms, beliefs, and expressive symbols† (Peterson, 1979, p. 137). Each police officer is influenced by the police organizational culture during training. After graduation fro the police academy, the officer is influenced by the more experienced officers of the department. Research conducted by several authors has found that peer influence never ceases even after years of experience in the field. Throughout life, people change their point of views by the impact of the people they encounter and the structure of society. Although people initially joining the organization have the ability to use common sense and encompass a variety of values, cultural and religious beliefs, this soon changes after joining. Throughout history, unorthodox behavior has become an acceptable norm within society due to peer pressure, fear, and longing to become part of the police culture. Adolf Hitler became a famous man who ruled Germany by fear, which led to be one of the world’s prevalent tragedies (Wistricht, 1995). The police societies retain both negative and positive qualities in their social norms, principles and attitude. â€Å"In the field of police, the standard of the performance are based on occupational culture† (Manning, 1978). The negative characteristics of police cultures assumed by Jermier et al. (1991) are â€Å"militaristic, uniformed dress, rigid rank hierarchy of authority, unbending rules and authoritative command system,† (p. 173). The police culture teaches false, misleading ideas and norms to alter officer’s judgment, thoughts, associati... ... Frost, R. (1999). Mountain Interval. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Retrieved from http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html Jermier, J. M., John, W. S., Fry, J. L., & Gaines, J. (1991, May 1991). Organizational Subcultures in a Soft Bureaucracy: Resistance Behind the Myth and Facade of an Official Culture. Organization Science, 2(2), 170-191. Manning, P. K. (1978). The police: Mandate strategies and appearances. (In P.K. Maning & J.V. Maanen ed.). Santa Monica, CA: Goodyear. Peterson, R. A. (1979). Revitalizing the Culture Concept. Annual Review of Sociology, 137-166. Sever, M. (2008, Feb ). Effects of Organizational Culture on Police Decision Making. Telemasp Bulletin, 15(1), p. 12. Retrieved from http://www.lemitonline.org/publications/telemasp/Pdf/volume%2015/vol15no1.pdf Wistricht, R. (1995). Who's Who In Nazi Germany (2 ed.). Routledge: Routledge.

Great Depression and Technology

As Albert Einstein once said â€Å"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. † Throughout the years our technology has become more and more advanced, creating more and more inventions. Modern technology has been created to fulfill every human’s needs. With such great advancements it has become convenient for our society to turn to technology for all our questions. We have not realized that day by day technology is taking over us. Many like to argue that it is not true, but if you were to take away every possible form of technology away from them, it would make living for them very difficult. Now a day, technology has played such an important role in our lives that it seems almost impossible for many of us to live without it. Being said, modern technology has produced more inconveniences than conveniences. To begin, with technology constantly advancing, many have become very reliant on it, making technology almost a necessity to a person’s everyday life. Almost everyone owns a car, a computer/laptop, a cell phone, and even higher advanced technology. Everywhere you go, people are either talking on their phone or texting, However, with so much technology being provided to us, it has made us profoundly lazy and too dependent on technology not allowing us to think for ourselves. So not only has modern technology made us lazy but also unintelligent. â€Å"Who can remember the days when you had to go to the library to do research for a research paper, had to pick up the morning newspaper to get the latest news, or had to buy a stamp and put a check in an envelope to pay a bill? In the last 50 years technology has undergone an amazing transformation. But with the emergence of the Internet, is our ability to access technology on a daily basis a good thing or a bad thing? † (Bradley). Bradley clearly states that we no longer do simple tasks on our own; we rely on technology to do them for us. We now use Google or other search engines to look up questions, turn on a televisions to see what is going on around us, and take a picture of a bill on our cell phones to pay it. â€Å"In another 50 years will we still be considered a lazy society? (Bradley). Furthermore, â€Å"Although the proliferation of communications technology has made it easier than to ever to have a conversation with or write a letter to another person, it has also rendered us more isolated. Computers have significantly reduced the amount of face-to-face interaction people once enjoyed. In place of the richness of human contact, many now settle for the comparatively pale pleasures of comp uter social networking† (Wolfe). With social medias like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, communicating with one another has become easier than ever. But this may not always be a good thing. People can easily create fake profiles and pretend to be a young man or woman when they can be a crazed rapist or murderer. Not only that but with so many social networks, cyber bullying has increased drastically. People can put whatever they want on the internet which can lower a person's self-esteem causing for them to want to kill themselves. Also, since we communicate so much over social media, it can affect our writing skills. Many people who chat online do not use proper vocabulary. For example, instead of writing okay, they abbreviate it writing OK. This causes us to begin writing in slang when we write papers for school. As a society we should learn face-to-face communication instead of over the internet. As final point, with new advanced machines being created and the machines being capable to do almost anything, there has been an increase in job elimination. Some of these jobs would include those of farm workers and factory workers. â€Å"A technology revolution is fast replacing human beings with machines in virtually every sector and industry in the global economy. Already, millions of workers have been permanently eliminated from the economic process, and whole work categories and job assignments have shrunk, been restructured, or disappeared. Global unemployment has now reached its highest level since the great depression of the 1930s. More than 800 million human beings are now unemployed or underemployed in the world. That figure is likely to rise sharply between now and the turn of the century as millions of new entrants into the workforce find themselves without jobs† (Rifkin). With modern technology taking over the jobs of farm workers, factory workers, etc, people are left jobless. And living in this economy has made it very difficult for people to find new jobs. Like Rotman said, â€Å"Rapid technological change has been destroying jobs faster than it is creating them. † With technology constantly evolving day by day our society has to be more careful than ever to not let it take over us. Although for many of us it may already have.

Middle School Speech Essay

I have been at Englewood School for four years. I am pleased to say that during these years I have created new friends and lived many exciting experiences. As a new student in third grade, my classmates and teachers made me feel as if I was among my family. From class time discussions to Christmas plays, we have enjoyed every single day within this community. Days filled with joy, laughter, and even sometimes sorrows have been our foundation to move to our next step. Our teachers have completed their mission and successfully prepared us for middle school. Our future experiences will be influenced from the exciting and moving moments that we cherish from the elementary years. Although we cannot go back to relive the moments we have spent together, we will remember them forever. During the upcoming years we will encounter difficult tasks but those will only make us stronger. We have to look forward to this new beginning. We must work hard, enjoy and above all, we must always stand together and united as we are today. The change we will face is not an easy one. As every other class before us we have been the oldest and the roles models for the little ones. Now, we will enter a new stage in which we will be the youngest and the new kids on the block. As we live new experiences, we must be prepared to win or lose. As long as we make the best of it, we will not regret it when looked back. Today we close a chapter of our school life. Tomorrow we begin writing another. Let us make that writing on our new chapter an interesting one. Thank you for being part of this class and let’s enjoy our future together.

History of Adhesives and Glue

History of Adhesives and Glue Archeologists excavating burial sites from 4000 BC have discovered clay pots repaired with glue made from tree sap. We know that the ancient Greeks developed adhesives for use in carpentry, and created recipes for glue that included the following items as ingredients: egg whites, blood, bones, milk, cheese, vegetables, and grains. Tar and beeswax were used by the Romans for glue. Around 1750, the first glue or adhesive patent was issued in Britain. The glue was made from fish. Patents were then rapidly issued for adhesives using natural rubber, animal bones, fish, starch, milk protein or casein. Superglue - Synthetic Glue Superglue or Krazy Glue is a substance called cyanoacrylate that was discovered by Dr. Harry Coover while working for Kodak Research Laboratories to develop an optically clear plastic for gunsights in 1942. Coover rejected cyanoacrylate because it was too sticky. In 1951, cyanoacrylate was rediscovered by Coover and Dr. Fred Joyner. Coover was now supervising research at the Eastman Company in Tennessee. Coover and Joyner were researching a heat-resistant acrylate polymer for jet canopies when Joyner spread a film of ethyl cyanoacrylate between refractometer prisms and discovered that the prisms were glued together. Coover finally realized that cyanoacrylate was a useful product and in 1958 the Eastman compound #910 was marketed and later packaged as superglue. Hot Glue - Thermoplastic Glue Hot glue or hot melt adhesives are thermoplastics that are applied hot (often using glue guns) and then harden as they cool. Hot glue and glue guns are commonly used for arts and crafts because of the wide range of materials that hot glue can stick together. Procter Gamble chemical and packaging engineer, Paul Cope invented thermoplastic glue around 1940 as an improvement to water-based adhesives that were failing in humid climates. This to That A nifty site that tells you what to use to glue anything to anything else. Read the trivia section for historical information. According to the â€Å"This to That† website, the famous cow used as the trademark on all Elmer’s glue products is actually named Elsie, and she is the spouse of Elmer, the bull (male cow) who the company is named after.

Rise and Fall of Nazi Officer Franz Stangl

Rise and Fall of Nazi Officer Franz Stangl Franz Stangl, nicknamed The White Death, was an Austrian Nazi who served as director of the Treblinka and Sobibor death camps in Poland during World War II. Under his co-direction, it is estimated that more than 1 million people were gassed and buried in mass graves. After the war, Stangl fled Europe, first to Syria and then to Brazil. In 1967, he was tracked down by Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and extradited to Germany, where he was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died from a heart attack in prison in 1971. Stangl as a Youth Franz Stangl was born in Altmuenster, Austria, on March 26, 1908. As a young man, he worked in textile factories, which would help him find employment later while on the run. He joined two organizations: the Nazi party and the Austrian police. When Germany annexed Austria in 1938, the ambitious young policeman joined the Gestapo and soon impressed his superiors with his cold efficiency and willingness to follow orders. Stangl and Aktion T4 In 1940, Stangl was assigned to Aktion T4, a Nazi program designed to improve the Aryan master race gene pool by weeding out the infirm. Stangl was assigned to the Hartheim Euthanasia Center near Linz, Austria. Germans and Austrian citizens who were deemed unworthy were euthanized, including those born with birth defects, the mentally ill, alcoholics, those with Down’s syndrome and other illnesses. The prevailing theory was that those with defects were draining the resources from society and polluting the Aryan race. At Hartheim, Stangl proved that he had the proper combination of attention to detail, organizational skill and absolute indifference to the suffering of those he deemed inferior. Aktion T4 was eventually suspended after indignation from German and Austrian citizens. Stangl at Sobibor Death Camp After Germany had invaded Poland, the Nazis had to figure out what to do with the millions of Polish Jews, who were considered subhuman according to the racial policy of Nazi Germany. The Nazis built three death camps in eastern Poland: Sobibor, Treblinka, and Belzec. Stangl was assigned as chief administrator of the Sobibor death camp, which was inaugurated in May 1942. Stangl served as camp director until his transfer in August. Trains carrying Jews from all over Eastern Europe arrived at the camp. Train passengers arrived, were systematically stripped, shaved and sent to the gas chambers to die. It is estimated in the three months that Stangl was at Sobibor, 100,000 Jews died under Stangl’s watch. Stangl at Treblinka Death Camp Sobibor was running very smoothly and efficiently, but the Treblinka death camp was not. Stangl was reassigned to Treblinka to make it more efficient. As the Nazi hierarchy had hoped, Stangl turned the inefficient camp around. When he arrived, he found corpses strewn about, little discipline among the soldiers and inefficient killing methods. He ordered the place cleaned up and made the train station attractive so that incoming Jewish passengers would not realize what was going to happen to them until it was too late. He ordered the construction of new, larger gas chambers and raised the killing capacity of Treblinka to an estimated 22,000 per day. He was so good at his job that he was awarded the honor â€Å"Best Camp Commandant in Poland† and awarded the Iron Cross, one of the highest Nazi honors. Stangl Assigned to Italy and Return to Austria Stangl was so efficient at administrating the death camps that he put himself out of work. By the middle of 1943, most of the Jews in Poland were either dead or hiding. The death camps were no longer needed. Anticipating the international outrage to the death camps, the Nazis bulldozed the camps and tried to hide the evidence as best they could. Stangl and other camp leaders like him were sent to the Italian front in 1943; it was hypothesized that it may have been a way to try and kill them off. Stangl survived the battles in  Italy and returned to Austria in 1945, where he stayed until the war ended. Flight to Brazil As an SS officer, the genocidal terror squad of the Nazi Party, Stangl attracted the attention of the Allies after the war and spent two years in an American internment camp. The Americans did not seem to realize who he was. When Austria began to show interest in him in 1947, it was due to his involvement in Aktion T4, not for the horrors that took place in Sobibor and Treblinka. He escaped in 1948 and made his way to Rome, where pro-Nazi bishop Alois Hudal helped him and his friend Gustav Wagner escape. Stangl first went to Damascus, Syria, where he easily found work in a textile factory. He prospered and was able to send for his wife and daughters. In 1951, the family moved to Brazil and settled in So Paulo. Turning up the Heat on Stangl Throughout his travels, Stangl did little to hide his identity. He never used an alias and even registered with the Austrian embassy in Brazil. By the early 1960s, although he felt safe in Brazil, it had to have been clear to Stangl that he was a wanted man. Fellow Nazi Adolf Eichmann was snatched off a Buenos Aires street in 1960 before being taken to Israel, tried and executed. In 1963, Gerhard Bohne, another former officer associated with Aktion T4, was indicted in Germany; he would eventually be extradited from Argentina. In 1964, 11 men who had worked for Stangl at Treblinka were tried and convicted. One of them was Kurt Franz, who had succeeded Stangl as commander of the camp.   Nazi Hunter Wiesenthal on the Chase Simon Wiesenthal, the well-known concentration camp survivor, and Nazi hunter had a long list of Nazi war criminals he  wanted to be brought  to justice, and Stangl’s name was near the top of the list. In 1964, Wiesenthal got a tip  that Stangl was living in Brazil and working at a Volkswagen factory in So Paulo. According to Wiesenthal, one of the tips came from a former Gestapo officer, who demanded to be paid one penny for every Jew killed at Treblinka and Sobibor. Wiesenthal estimated that 700,000 Jews had died in those camps, so the total for the tip came to $7,000, payable if and when Stangl was captured. Wiesenthal eventually paid the informant. Another tip to Wiesenthal concerning Stangl’s whereabouts may have come from Stangl’s former son-in-law. Arrest and Extradition Wiesenthal pressured Germany to issue a request to Brazil for the arrest and extradition of Stangl. On February 28, 1967, the ex-Nazi was arrested in Brazil as he returned from a bar with his adult daughter. In June, Brazilian courts ruled that he should be extradited and shortly thereafter he was put on a plane for West Germany. It took German authorities three years to bring him to trial. He was charged with the deaths of 1.2 million people. Trial and Death Stangl’s trial began on May 13, 1970. The prosecution’s case was well-documented and Stangl did not contest most of the accusations. He instead relied on the same line prosecutors had been hearing since the Nuremberg Trials, that he was only â€Å"following orders.† He was convicted on December 22, 1970, of complicity in the deaths of 900,000 people and sentenced to life in prison. He died of a heart attack in prison on June 28, 1971, about six months after his conviction. Before he died, he gave a long interview to Austrian writer Gitta Sereny. The interview sheds some light on how Stangl was able to commit the atrocities he did. He repeatedly said that his conscience was clear because he had come to see the endless train cars of Jews as nothing more than cargo. He said he did not hate Jews personally but was proud of the organizational work he had done in the camps. In the same interview, he mentioned that his former colleague Gustav Wagner was hiding in Brazil. Later, Wiesenthal would track Wagner down and have him arrested, but the Brazilian government never extradited him.   Unlike some of the other Nazis, Stangl did not appear to relish the killing he oversaw. There are no accounts of him ever murdering anyone personally like fellow camp commander Josef Schwammberger or Auschwitz â€Å"Angel of Death† Josef Mengele. He wore a whip while at the camps, which he apparently seldom used it, although there were very few eyewitnesses who survived the Sobibor and Treblinka camps to verify it. There is no doubt, however, that Stangl’s institutionalized slaughter ended the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Wiesenthal claimed to have brought 1,100 former Nazis to justice. Stangl was by far the â€Å"biggest fish† that the famous Nazi hunter ever caught. Sources Simon Wiesenthal Archive. Franz Stangl. Walters, Guy. Hunting Evil: the Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring them to Justice. 2010: Broadway Books.