In the first chapter titled ‘Is Belief Wishful Thinking?’ Herbert McCabe throws light on the evolution of faith. According to McCabe, one of the lazy pretexts for religious belief is its comforting illusions. People have a tendency to want to believe in a fair and wise God who dispenses justice to all. But this is…
Category: Philosophy
St. Anselm’s version of the Ontological Argument and Gaunilo’s objection to it
Anselm of Canterbury was one of the early promoters of the Ontological Argument supporting the existence of God. He argues that God exists on the basis that ‘something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought’ should necessarily exist in reality. In other words, just as anything a painter can conceive of can be materialized into a painting, the conception of God is…
Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience by Sharon Salzberg
It is important for all of us to have spiritual moorings. To be able to negotiate the vagaries of life, a spiritual support is essential. Sharon Salzberg’s informative book Faith is a personalized account of the necessity of faith. Talking from her experiences as an American Buddhist teacher, Salzberg offers readers several insights on the…
The considerable overlap between Buddhism and Neuroscience
Following the thesis of Weisman’s article for the Seed Magazine, this essay will further furnish evidence in support of its claims. This essay will argue that much of the distilled wisdom of Buddhist thought is congruent with modern findings in neuroscience. Of late Buddhism has found a following in the West. The major reason is…
C. A. Campbell’s Has The Self ‘Free Will’?
Rubric: What two conditions must be satisfied, according to Campbell, in order for a choice to be an exercise of free will (in the morally significant sense)? How do these two conditions relate to determinism? Also provide a reasoned evaluation of Campbell’s defense of free will. At the outset, there is no consensus among philosophers…
The Qualia Problem by Frank Jackson
At the centre of Frank Jackson’s articulation of the Qualia Problem is the claim that “one can have all the physical information without having all the information there is to have”. In the case of sensory experience, for example, while all sorts of comprehensive data could be recorded in a said event, there is yet…
The Value of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell (Chapter XV of Problems of Philosophy)
Rubric: Explain Russell’s take on the central value of philosophy. In the final part of your answer, provide a reasoned evaluation of some aspect of Russell’s defense of philosophical inquiry that includes some discussion of an example or two that you think illustrates the importance of philosophy in relation to living and acting in the…
The Spaces between Stars by Geeta Kothari: An interpretation based on Hindusism
Hinduism is one of the oldest religions of the world. It evolved in the Indian subcontinent over 5000 years ago and has a rich body of literature. Unlike monotheistic religions such as Christianity or Islam, Hinduism is polytheistic, with thousands of deities and gods being worshipped. Even in terms of ethnography and culture there is…
Difference between descriptive ethics and normative ethics
What is the difference between descriptive ethics and normative ethics? What role do values play in each of these two approaches to ethics? Provide examples to illustrate your points. Descriptive ethics is founded on the belief that humans are ‘hard-wired’ to be selfish. That is, they are for the most part absorbed in fulfilling their…
The Great Man Theory of History as evidenced in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance
Applying the Great Man theory of History as a subtext to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s classic essay Self-Reliance makes for an interesting synthesis. The Great Man theory was brought into public discourse by Thomas Carlyle in the 1840s. But most of the later commentators pointed out to some of the misassumptions and flaws in the theory….