"Every thought I was having while awake I can also think of myself as sometimes having while asleep; and since I do not believe that what I seem to perceive in sleep comes from things located outside me, I did not see why I should be any more inclined to believe this of what I think I perceive while awake.... John Locke's claim is that we cannot have the same physical presence of pain in dreams as we seemingly have in real life. ... Knowing the premise of the argument Hobbes stated, "because in waking, I often observe the absurdity of Dreams, but never dream of the absurdities o...

• Word Count: 1205
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

We"ll have children, and our children will have children" (102). ... Miller allows Loman to exist in a disturbed version of the American Dream. ... Unfortunately, he convinces his two sons that having these traits is more important than school work and being a productive member of society. ... He realizes that "I"m like a boy. I"m not married, I"m not in business" (11). ...

• Word Count: 621
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

First, Descartes realizes that many of his beliefs are false, stating, "It is some years now since I realized how many false opinions I had accepted as true from childhood onwards, and that, whatever I had since built on such shaky foundations, could only be highly doubtful (Descartes 13).... Even though he is dreaming, his senses and perceptions appear to be completely real and convincing. ... Descartes asserts, "When I think this matter over more carefully I see so clearly that waking can never be distinguished from sleep by any conclusive indications that I am stupefied (Descarte...

• Word Count: 1233
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

As he explains, "I could enumerate many more of these Utopian inventions; but, after all, a more imaginative collection is to be found in the Patent Office in Washington. ... In this instant when the young boy is being propelled upward by the swinging birches, he is given the "half grant" of his wish to be swept away in his dreams. ... Living purely in our dreams, we are momentarily autonomous, finding contentment only in our own personal thoughts and desires. ... Our dreams grant each of us a "universal passport" of sorts, allowing us to experience fleeting moments of freedom from the burd...

• Word Count: 859
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Firstly, Descartes argues that "from time to time I [he] have found that the senses deceive with respect to barely perceivable and distant objects". ... Therefore, it is "prudent never to trust completely those [senses] that have deceived us even once". Secondly, as reinforcement to doubting the legitimacy of our sensory perceptions, Descartes proceeds with his dream argument. ... Similarly, even if there is no material world (and thus even in our dreams), two plus two equals to four and red looks red to us. ... The Dream argument presupposes that there may not be a material world to begin wi...

• Word Count: 626
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Victor begins his tale to Walton by describing his early childhood, "I was so guided by a silken cord, that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me" (42). ... "My mother had much desired to have a daughter, but I continued to be their single offspring" (p 42). ... Having never fully differentiated from his mother, Victor views his mother's death as his own. ... "Lacan treated the unconscious as a language and viewed the dream as a form of discourse" (169). ... "Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree I shunned my fellow-creatures ...

• Word Count: 2532
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Human activities, such as, reasoning, creating, or dreaming are private; we assume they happen, but we can't see them. ... Have you ever felt sad or angry but did not know why? ... Sleep (and dreaming) is another form of consciousness. Freud saw dreams as images of symbolic expressions of powerful unconscious, repressed wishes. ... " I think therefore I am" may be somewhat of an overstatement, but not by much....

• Word Count: 1566
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Also, by talking about reality and dreaming Descartes provokes his readers to examine their own thoughts on reality and dreaming since both ideas are experienced by everyone. ... This particular portion would make absolutely no sense if it had been written in the third person since only "I" can know that "I" in fact exist. ... While it can be argued that the Meditations could have been equally written in the third person, this argument would not rest well with the major premise and starting point of the basis of Descartes" philosophy, "I think, therefore I am." ... This I do not know I can ...

• Word Count: 1200
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In my term paper, I will be focusing on specific passages from Meditations on First Philosophy, which was written in 1641. ... Like authority though, Descartes discards the senses as a source of truth because of the "Dream Argument" or the belief that based on the senses there is no definite way of proving that you are dreaming or that you are awake. ... Descartes articulates this belief in the statement, "I"m aware that I"m aware." ... Based on this "Causal" proof he says, " I have the idea of a perfect being, and that idea has to have a cause, and since I am imperfect, the idea has t...

• Word Count: 1700
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

They both have two distinct epistemic systems that all address the idea of knowledge and what it is. ... In a similar approach, Locke argued that we have no innate moral or practical principles, for there is no universal agreement about such principles. ... Locke discussed these ideas in Books I and II and stressed that the theory of innate ideas is not the only theory possible, explaining the alternative theory of experience being the sole provider of ideas. ... Therefore, something must have existed from eternity. ... The notion that inanimate objects have minds is ridiculous, and thus th...

• Word Count: 2949
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

He even doubted his senses, to wit: "All that I have, up to this moment, accepted as possessed of the highest truth and certainty, I received either from or through the senses. I observed, however, that these sometimes misled us; and it is the part of prudence not to place absolute confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.... It is possible, according to him that our whole life could be a dream. ... The mere fact that he was uncertain whether he is dreaming or awake manifests that he is in a state of doubt. ... Thus "Cogito Ergo Sum" or "I think therefor...

• Word Count: 4771
• Approx Pages: 19
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

DesCartes stated that he had no way of being certain that everything he perceived was nothing more than something he created subconsciously in his mind, such as a in dream. This theory fails because dreams are built on knowledge we have of the external world, on bits and pieces of our real experience. ... His theory states that "I have found within myself the concept of God". ... He deduced that "I doubt, therefore I think, and therefore I am"." ... All people should have satisfied desires. ...

• Word Count: 2303
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Perhaps more pointedly, should one have to choose at all? ... And many of the philosophers who have existed over the course of centuries have necessarily had to worry about governmental, church or societal disapproval, censorship, or punishment. ... I suppose that my point, which I am being exceedingly long-winded about, is that philosophy does not stand apart from the rest of the sciences and it should, can, and must be a science. ... "I think therefore I am" or "cogito ergo sum," the well-known quote of Rene Descartes, is the basis of his theory known as dualism. ... With this idea, he...

• Word Count: 2227
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Thoughts and dreams attack the mind and invade the body. ... Such experience of silent impact of violence represents the cultural boundary of self and its relation to the world collapsed. " On the edge of non-existence and hallucination, of a reality that, if I acknowledge it, annihilates me. ... These examples of violation on body have evolved historically from an interplay between construction of cultural parameters of identity and differences ( such as gender, race, or class ). ... The personal trauma becomes an unending process only hope can rescuer the surviving "I" of identity. ... For ...

• Word Count: 2257
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

These questions have intrigued philosophers for centuries, but thankfully there were two individuals who understood human behavior. ... In this essay, I will compare how Freud and Skinner's approaches toward human behavior helped to answer some of life's mind boggling questions as well as highlight some of the main ideas of their theories. ... Freud also made the comment that sometimes a person's dreams were actually a gateway for secret desires. ... What Skinner did believe in was that in order to shape a behavior we have to have reinforcement as the primary factor; he also b...

• Word Count: 2180
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

As I see it, this reduction stems from a problematic literalism that some ecocritics have brought into their reading of Thoreau's opposition to Emerson. ... Though I share Phillips's belief that "we need to cure ecocriticism of its fundamentalist fixation on literal representation," the larger theory and critique of ecocriticism of the sort he pursues is beyond my scope here. (8) Rather, in paying greater attention to the sort of ecological literacy or, less anachronistically, the natural history writing and thinking that emerge in Emerson as it does in Thoreau, I will be arguing th...

• Word Count: 9971
• Approx Pages: 40
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

(continue the list of problems that have emerged in the last half century, in a decision which should contribute psychologists). 5. ... Personalkstichesky approach assumes that such ideas would not have arisen without the appearance of these outstanding individuals. ... It turns out that in another biography of the author's personality or other psychological history would have gone in a different direction. ... However, the term and concept of "soul" and having passed a certain historical path long before as philosophy, theology, psychology made him the subject of his research. ... Howeve...

• Word Count: 4386
• Approx Pages: 18
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate