Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and exercises for Philosophy and ethics for Other courses

TOMAS: Individuation: The essence is common and individualizes by matter. Matter, when it joins the essence, gives uniqueness. Difference Between Essence and Existence: In creatures, existence (which pertains to beings) and essence (what makes something be what it is and nothing else) are different. They are also contingent beings, as their existence does not depend on themselves. God is necessary, where He is identified with the essence. Five Ways Structure: The structuring of the tracks has two bases: first, an epistemological foundation and partly an ontological foundation. It is a common structure for the five ways, all based on a datum of experience. First, this was the sensible verifiable by experience. Then, applying the principle of...

The Origins of the Ethics of Maxima

The origins of the ethics of maxima are found in the poems of Homer, dating back to the 8th century BC. These works reflect the foundational morality of Western culture. In this context, the ideal person is defined as someone who is strong, brave, fearless, and driven by a desire to both serve society and distinguish themselves as the best (e.g., Odysseus, Hector).

The Shift to New Morality in Athens

By the 5th century BC, the rise of democracy in Athens shifted the mentality regarding what constitutes a "good person." The prevailing thought evolved to value individuals who are tolerant, skilled listeners, and effective communicators capable of engaging in constructive dialogue and debating arguments. This shift...

Art, Aesthetic Intuition, and Intellectual Knowledge

Unlike Schopenhauer, Nietzsche emphasizes the individual. Schopenhauer adopts the Kantian distinction between phenomenon and noumenon, establishing an empirical world and a "real" one, whose essence is the will.

• For Schopenhauer, all desire is "by nature pain."
• Suffering is the engine of life.
• The will is energy, manifested in everything through a process of "participation," where everything is individualized yet part of a universal single will.

This concept remains one of the major influences on Nietzsche.

Scientific Influence

Nineteenth-century philosophy was heavily influenced by biology, the science of life. Vitalism is a philosophy that establishes life as the supreme value, reacting against...

Journalistic Texts and News Structure

Classification of Journalistic Genres

• Informational: Interview, news, and reportage.
• Opinion: Editorial and article.
• Background.

The Anatomy of News

The news consists of a holder (headline), entry, and body. The holder may be accompanied by an antetitulo and subtitle, and should achieve a conative function through concision and wit. When the news is long, there may be intermediate holders. The entry is a brief summary of the news, often highlighted in bold or italics.

The Inverted Pyramid and Page Hierarchy

The body develops the introduction following an inverted pyramid structure, ordered according to importance. For a journalist, the hierarchy of importance is as follows:

• The 1st page is the most important.
• The

Descartes' Arguments for the Existence of God

Descartes offers several arguments to prove the existence of God:

• The Argument from Perfection: The idea of a perfect being cannot originate from an imperfect self or an imperfect world. Therefore, it must be an innate idea placed in us by a truly perfect being: God.
• The Theory of Continuous Creation: The world requires constant divine intervention to continue existing.
• The Ontological Argument: Based on St. Anselm’s logic, one cannot conceive of God as not existing; this is an a priori proof.

Cartesian Dualism and the External World

Descartes' idealism does not deny the existence of the external world; rather, he justifies it through God. He distinguishes between two types of substances:

• Res Cogitans

The first truth I think is a criterion of truth and certainty. Not common knowledge, no formal knowledge of mathematics or knowledge of nature can ensure a solid foundation. This waiver can only be given as long as I can doubt everything and renounce everything. The existence of the self as the subject of thought is immediately evident; the mind is imposed on the act of thinking itself, which involves the existence of self in a single act of self-consciousness. The self appears to us as thinking while existing. Many aspects of self are expendable; all that is problematic is dispensable in doubt. I could not possibly give up my existence until I cease to think. The thinking self is certainly an idea that comes to my mind clearly—the cogito...

Illustration and Postmodernism

Enlightenment can be defined as the movement for the spread of culture and knowledge that evolved during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Conversely, postmodernism, emerging in a world plagued by dramatic events such as world wars, is marked by skepticism, doubting both reason and faith.

The Enlightenment

The limits of the Enlightenment reach most of the seventeenth century, a time when Europe was embroiled in religious wars. The Age of Reason attempted to establish a philosophy based on axioms and absolutism as foundations for knowledge and stability. The goal was to base nature on theological principles that became purely experimental and rational.

Key Figures of the Enlightenment

• Montesquieu: Argued that

Descartes' Impact on Philosophy and the Existence of God

Due to the great importance of Descartes, we can relate his ideas to many authors in the history of philosophy, both past and present. We could relate him to St. Thomas Aquinas and focus primarily on his theory of knowledge and the demonstration of the existence of God.

For Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, knowledge starts from experience; there is nothing in the understanding that has not gone through the senses. For Descartes, the senses are deceptive, and truth is the evidence that reveals reason. Thomas Aquinas' proof of the existence of God starts from the observation of facts. Descartes made his proof from the innate idea of infinity, which does not come from experience.

Descartes and

The Cartesian Doubt and the Self

The Cartesian doubt leads to the existence of an unquestionable I think, a substance that thinks, the res cogitans or soul.

Types of Thinking

There are several kinds of thinking:

• Volition (wishes), which may or may not be true.
• Trials, which are uncertain regarding their truth.
• Ideas, which are the only truly certain thoughts, representing mental concepts.

Classification of Ideas

Ideas can be classified based on their origin:

• Adventitious or Acquired: Ideas that originate from the external world.
• Factitial or Artificial: Ideas that we invent ourselves.
• Innate or Natural: Ideas that do not proceed from the external world nor are constructed by us, but arise from our own thinking.

Demonstrating the Existence of God

Descartes...

Mechanistic View of the Universe

Mechanistic thought emerged during the transition from the medieval model, a time marked by a shift from theocentrism (God as the center of everything) to anthropocentrism (man as the center of everything).

The New Vision of the Universe

Initially, the universe was believed to be orderly and stable, adhering to the geocentric model (Earth at the center of the universe). However, this was replaced by the heliocentric model (the Sun at the center), with Earth and other planets revolving around it. The universe was no longer seen as finite, as it was with Aristotle, but infinite and homogeneous, governed by mathematical laws explaining the behavior of both celestial and terrestrial bodies. This is known as the mechanistic