Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Philosophy and ethics

Legitimacy of the State and the Definition of Law

The legitimacy of the state's action is to defend peace, values, and characteristics of democracies.

Understanding Law: Three Perspectives

Law can be understood in three ways:

1. Science: The study of law through its history, philosophy, and sociology.
2. Subjective Power: The effective power a member of society has to possess, make, or demand something, according to the laws and the legal system that protects them.
3. Objective: The set of laws and regulations governing the conduct of people and directing their lives in society.

Key Characteristics of Law

Law has the following characteristics:

1. Rationality: Law must have its foundation in reason, far from any arbitrary whim.
2. Freedom or Tolerance: For equal circumstances,

Understanding Empiricism

Empiricism is the philosophical theory according to which the origin and limits of knowledge are sensory experience. The best-known empiricists include Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, and George Berkeley.

Understanding Rationalism

Conversely, Rationalism is the philosophical doctrine that recognizes no source of knowledge other than reason, thus rejecting revelation, faith, and the senses. In the history of philosophy, rationalism has a more limited meaning, beginning in the 17th century with the figure of the mathematician René Descartes.

Key Differences Between Empiricism and Rationalism

It is interesting to compare Empiricism and Rationalism through their core tenets:

1. Source of Knowledge

   For Empiricism, the source

Ontological Idealism: Plato's Perspective

Plato argues that ideas exist independently, and he defends this position:

• If ideas were merely the product of thought, then thought could invent anything. However, thought does not invent ideas but discovers what already exists, as Plato discovered.
• For Plato, thinking is not merely any mental activity, but a specific understanding of pre-existing truths; one cannot simply think otherwise.
• Experience shows a succession of particular cases, but the idea is universal, encompassing all possible cases.
• Furthermore, there are ideas that do not represent things found in physical reality.

Christian Dualism

Christian dualism posits a fundamental distinction:

• The Creator: Necessary, omnipotent, and eternal.
• The Created:

Medieval vs. Modern Rights: A Fundamental Divide

Medieval practice rarely recognized libertate iura and individuals as such, a stark contrast to the fundamental feature of modern law stemming from revolutionary declarations of rights. Rights and freedoms in the Middle Ages possessed a corporate structure, being the heritage of the manor, place, valley, city, village, or community. Therefore, they belonged to individuals only insofar as they were deeply rooted in these lands and communities.

The Concept of "Positive Freedom"

The concept of rights entrenched in history, and their consequent unavailability to those holding political power, offers an alternative interpretation for advocates of the ideology underpinning modern law. This perspective... Continue reading "Historical Evolution of Rights: Medieval to Modern Perspectives" »

René Descartes: Architect of Modern Rationalism

René Descartes was a prominent philosopher of the Early Modern period. For him, the idea of God is a metaphysical, innate, infinite, and rational concept. As a foundational rationalist philosopher, Descartes initiated modern philosophy by seeking a rigorous method to distinguish between truth and falsehood.

Descartes' Quest for Indubitable Truth: The Method

His method had to be universal, objective, and consisted of four rules:

• Evidence: To accept nothing as true unless it is clearly and distinctly evident, avoiding all prejudice and haste.
• Analysis: To divide each difficulty into as many parts as possible to resolve it better.
• Synthesis: To conduct thoughts in an orderly fashion, beginning with the

Understanding Descartes' Method

We comment that in the Discourse on Method, Descartes seeks to establish a set of rules to achieve true knowledge without any doubt. These rules lead us unambiguously so that the truth is always rigorously applied.

Given that all we know are dubious opinions, we reject anything that is not obviously true. This means that, in the light of reason, we must show for certain what is true, in a clear and distinct manner. Therefore, only the right judgments on the truth of judgments, in any sense, are a source of error.

Breaking Down Problems

Then, we divide any problem into its simplest elements and find the truth by applying the first rule. Finally, we reconstruct the difficulty, progressing from its simpler elements... Continue reading "Understanding Descartes' Method and the Nature of Doubt" »

Transcendental Illusion: Reason and its Limits

The basis of understanding, according to Kant, lies in the application of concepts to general phenomena, drawing upon both a priori knowledge and experience. Thinking involves organizing concepts logically, based on their universality. This process leads to what Kant calls Ideas of Reason:

• Alma (the body of knowledge about internal experience)
• World (knowledge about external experience)
• God (a synthesis of both)

Although these ideas encompass all phenomena, they do not provide us with concrete knowledge. We lack the necessary intuition to grasp them. Therefore, metaphysics as a science is impossible, as knowledge is limited by sensory experience. However, humans have a natural inclination to ponder... Continue reading "Kant's Transcendental Illusion: Reason and Metaphysics" »

The Relationship Between Ideas

Ideas are the materials of knowledge, appearing in a specific order. This order depends on whether it's power, memory, or imagination that brings them to mind. Memory maintains the original momentum and position of ideas, while imagination combines them more freely. We can imagine fantastical creatures, like a centaur, but we remember a horse. Hume identifies a 'soft power' in human nature that associates ideas along three principles: similarity, spatiotemporal contiguity, and causation. "A picture naturally leads our thoughts to the original. The mention of one room in a building naturally introduces a question or comment about the others, and if we think of a wound, we can hardly refrain from thinking about the... Continue reading "Understanding Knowledge: Ideas, Relations, and Facts" »

Atheism

Atheism is a theory or attitude that denies the existence of God.

Science

Science is a set of knowledge and activities designed to acquire it, formally characterized by intersubjectivity, and practically by the ability to make accurate forecasts about a part of reality.

Tarraconense Council

The Tarraconense Council document reflects on the requests made by the poorest and marginalized. It calls upon Christians to renew their commitment to specific fields of social action.

Dignity (Ecclesiastical)

In cathedral chapters and collegiate churches, dignity refers to each higher ecclesiastical office or 'perk,' such as that of the Dean, Archpriest, or Archdeacon.

Discrimination

Discrimination refers to the act of treating certain members of a collective... Continue reading "Fundamental Concepts: Philosophy, Science, and Society" »

René Descartes' Philosophy

René Descartes used 'substance' and 'matter' (or res) as synonyms. The characteristic of substance is independent existence – it does not require anything else to exist. Therefore, God is the only true substance, as all creatures depend on God for their existence.

Descartes' Concept of Substance

Descartes identified two primary types of substance:

• Infinite Substance: God's Existence

  Our ability to doubt implies imperfection. But where does the idea of perfection originate? Since it cannot be a factitious idea (created by oneself) nor an adventitious idea (derived from external experience), as neither we nor the things of this world are perfect, it must be an innate idea. This idea, placed within us by a perfect and