1.
Philosophy
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Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The term was coined by Pythagoras. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument and systematic presentation, classic philosophical questions include, Is it possible to know anything and to prove it. However, philosophers might also pose more practical and concrete questions such as, is it better to be just or unjust. Historically, philosophy encompassed any body of knowledge, from the time of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to the 19th century, natural philosophy encompassed astronomy, medicine and physics. For example, Newtons 1687 Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy later became classified as a book of physics, in the 19th century, the growth of modern research universities led academic philosophy and other disciplines to professionalize and specialize. In the modern era, some investigations that were part of philosophy became separate academic disciplines, including psychology, sociology. Other investigations closely related to art, science, politics, or other pursuits remained part of philosophy, for example, is beauty objective or subjective. Are there many scientific methods or just one, is political utopia a hopeful dream or hopeless fantasy. Major sub-fields of academic philosophy include metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, logic, philosophy of science, since the 20th century, professional philosophers contribute to society primarily as professors, researchers and writers. Traditionally, the term referred to any body of knowledge. In this sense, philosophy is related to religion, mathematics, natural science, education. This division is not obsolete but has changed, Natural philosophy has split into the various natural sciences, especially astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and cosmology. Moral philosophy has birthed the social sciences, but still includes value theory, metaphysical philosophy has birthed formal sciences such as logic, mathematics and philosophy of science, but still includes epistemology, cosmology and others. Many philosophical debates that began in ancient times are still debated today, colin McGinn and others claim that no philosophical progress has occurred during that interval. Chalmers and others, by contrast, see progress in philosophy similar to that in science, in one general sense, philosophy is associated with wisdom, intellectual culture and a search for knowledge. In that sense, all cultures and literate societies ask philosophical questions such as how are we to live, a broad and impartial conception of philosophy then, finds a reasoned inquiry into such matters as reality, morality and life in all world civilizations. Socrates was an influential philosopher, who insisted that he possessed no wisdom but was a pursuer of wisdom
2.
University of Oxford
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The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university located in Oxford, England. It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris, after disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two ancient universities are frequently referred to as Oxbridge. The university is made up of a variety of institutions, including 38 constituent colleges, All the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities. Being a city university, it not have a main campus, instead, its buildings. Oxford is the home of the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the worlds oldest and most prestigious scholarships, the university operates the worlds oldest university museum, as well as the largest university press in the world and the largest academic library system in Britain. Oxford has educated many notable alumni, including 28 Nobel laureates,27 Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, the University of Oxford has no known foundation date. Teaching at Oxford existed in form as early as 1096. It grew quickly in 1167 when English students returned from the University of Paris, the historian Gerald of Wales lectured to such scholars in 1188 and the first known foreign scholar, Emo of Friesland, arrived in 1190. The head of the university had the title of chancellor from at least 1201, the university was granted a royal charter in 1248 during the reign of King Henry III. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled from the violence to Cambridge, the students associated together on the basis of geographical origins, into two nations, representing the North and the South. In later centuries, geographical origins continued to many students affiliations when membership of a college or hall became customary in Oxford. At about the time, private benefactors established colleges as self-contained scholarly communities. Among the earliest such founders were William of Durham, who in 1249 endowed University College, thereafter, an increasing number of students lived in colleges rather than in halls and religious houses. In 1333–34, an attempt by some dissatisfied Oxford scholars to found a new university at Stamford, Lincolnshire was blocked by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge petitioning King Edward III. Thereafter, until the 1820s, no new universities were allowed to be founded in England, even in London, thus, Oxford and Cambridge had a duopoly, the new learning of the Renaissance greatly influenced Oxford from the late 15th century onwards. Among university scholars of the period were William Grocyn, who contributed to the revival of Greek language studies, and John Colet, the noted biblical scholar. With the English Reformation and the breaking of communion with the Roman Catholic Church, recusant scholars from Oxford fled to continental Europe, as a centre of learning and scholarship, Oxfords reputation declined in the Age of Enlightenment, enrolments fell and teaching was neglected
3.
Martin Heidegger
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Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher and a seminal thinker in the Continental tradition and philosophical hermeneutics. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, he is acknowledged to be one of the most original. His first and best known book, Being and Time, though unfinished, is one of the philosophical works of the 20th century. Heidegger approached the question through an inquiry into the being that has an understanding of Being, and asks the question about it, namely, Human being, for Heidegger thinking is thinking about things originally discovered in our everyday practical engagements. The consequence of this is that our capacity to think cannot be the most central quality of our being because thinking is a reflecting upon this more original way of discovering the world. Heideggers later work includes criticisms of technologys instrumentalist understanding in the Western tradition as enframing, treating all of Nature as a reserve on call for human purposes. Heidegger was born in rural Meßkirch, Germany, the son of Johanna, raised a Roman Catholic, he was the son of the sexton of the village church that adhered to the First Vatican Council of 1870, which was observed mainly by the poorer class of Meßkirch. Heidegger was short and sinewy, with piercing eyes. He enjoyed outdoor pursuits, being proficient at skiing. In the two following, he worked first as an unsalaried Privatdozent. He served as a soldier during the year of World War I, working behind a desk. During the 1930s, critics of Heideggers espousal of a Nazi-style rhetoric of martial manliness noted the unheroic nature of his service in WWI, in 1923, Heidegger was elected to an extraordinary Professorship in Philosophy at the University of Marburg. His colleagues there included Rudolf Bultmann, Nicolai Hartmann, and Paul Natorp, Heideggers students at Marburg included Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Gerhard Krüger, Leo Strauss, Jacob Klein, Gunther Anders, and Hans Jonas. Following on from Aristotle, he began to develop in his lectures the main theme of his philosophy, the question of the sense of being. He extended the concept of subject to the dimension of history and concrete existence, which he found prefigured in such Christian thinkers as Saint Paul, Augustine of Hippo, Luther and he also read the works of Dilthey, Husserl, and Max Scheler. In 1927, Heidegger published his main work Sein und Zeit, when Husserl retired as Professor of Philosophy in 1928, Heidegger accepted Freiburgs election to be his successor, in spite of a counter-offer by Marburg. Heidegger remained at Freiburg im Breisgau for the rest of his life, declining a number of later offers and his students at Freiburg included Arendt, Günther Anders, Hans Jonas, Karl Löwith, Charles Malik, Herbert Marcuse and Ernst Nolte. Emmanuel Levinas attended his lecture courses during his stay in Freiburg in 1928, Heidegger was elected rector of the University on 21 April 1933, and joined the National Socialist German Workers Party on 1 May
4.
Brigham Young University
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Brigham Young University is a private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. Approximately 99 percent of the students are members of the LDS Church, many students either delay enrollment or take a hiatus from their studies to serve as Mormon missionaries. An education at BYU is also less expensive than at similar private universities, BYU offers a variety of academic programs, including liberal arts, engineering, agriculture, management, physical and mathematical sciences, nursing, and law. The university is organized into 11 colleges or schools at its main Provo campus, with certain colleges. The universitys primary focus is on education, but it also has 68 masters and 25 doctoral degree programs. BYUs athletic teams compete in Division I of the NCAA and are known as the BYU Cougars. Their college football team is an NCAA Division I Independent, while their other teams compete in either the West Coast Conference or Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. BYUs sports teams have won a total of fourteen national championships, on October 16,1875, Brigham Young, then president of the LDS Church, personally purchased the Lewis Building after previously hinting that a school would be built in Draper, Utah, in 1867. Hence, October 16,1875, is held as BYUs founding date. The school broke off from the University of Deseret and became Brigham Young Academy, warren Dusenberry served as interim principal of the school for several months until April 1876 when Brigham Youngs choice for principal arrived—a German immigrant named Karl Maeser. Under Maesers direction the school educated many luminaries including future U. S. Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland, the school, however, did not become a university until the end of Benjamin Cluffs term at the helm of the institution. At that time, the school was still privately supported by members of the community and was not absorbed and sponsored officially by the LDS Church until July 18,1896. A series of odd managerial decisions by Cluff led to his demotion, however, in his last official act, he proposed to the Board that the Academy be named Brigham Young University. The suggestion received an amount of opposition, with many members of the Board saying that the school wasnt large enough to be a university. One opponent to the decision, Anthon H. Lund, later said, in 1903 Brigham Young Academy was dissolved, and was replaced by two institutions, Brigham Young High School, and Brigham Young University. The Board elected George H. Brimhall as the new President of BYU and he had not received a high school education until he was forty. Nevertheless, he was an excellent orator and organizer, under his tenure in 1904 the new Brigham Young University bought 17 acres of land from Provo called Temple Hill. After some controversy among locals over BYUs purchase of property, construction began in 1909 on the first building on the current campus
5.
Harvard Law School
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Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is considered to be one of the most prestigious in the world. The school is ranked third by the U. S. News & World and its acceptance rate was 15. 4% in the 2013–14 admissions cycle, and its yield rate of 66. 2% was the second-highest of any law school in the United States. It is ranked first in the 2016 QS World University Rankings, Harvard Law admitted 16. 5% of applicants in its most recent class, compared to 9. 2% at Yale and 11. 2% at Stanford. With a current enrollment of 1,990, HLS has about as many students as its three closest-ranked peer institutions, first-ranked Yale, second-ranked Stanford, and fourth-ranked Chicago, combined. The first-year class is broken into seven sections of approximately 80 students, Harvards uniquely large class size and its prestige have led the law school to graduate a great many distinguished alumni in the judiciary, government, and the business world. According to Harvard Laws 2015 ABA-required disclosures,95. 33% of the Class of 2014 passed the Bar exam. Harvard Law Schools founding is linked to the funding of Harvards first professorship in law, paid for from a bequest from the estate of Isaac Royall. Today, it is home to the largest academic law library in the world, the current dean of Harvard Law School is Martha Minow, who assumed the role on July 1,2009. The law school has 328 faculty members, Harvard Law Schools founding is traced to the establishment of a law department at Harvard in 1817. Dating the founding to the year of the creation of the law department makes Harvard Law the oldest continuously-operating law school in the nation, William & Mary Law School opened first in 1779, but closed due to the American Civil War, reopening in 1920. The University of Maryland School of Law was chartered in 1816, but did not begin classes until 1824, and also closed during the Civil War. Or a Professor of Physick and Anatomy, whichever the said overseers and Corporation shall judge to be best. ”The value of the land, when fully liquidated in 1809, was $2,938, the Harvard Corporation allocated $400 from the income generated by those funds to create the Royall Professorship of Law in 1815. The dean of the law school traditionally held the Royall chair, deans Elena Kagan, royalls Medford estate, the Isaac Royall House, is now a museum which features the only remaining slave quarters in the northeast United States. The Royall family coat-of-arms, which shows three stacked wheat sheaves, was adopted as the school crest in 1936, topped with the university motto, in March 2016, following requests by students, the school decided to remove the emblem because of its association with slavery. By 1827, the school, with one faculty member, was struggling, nathan Dane, a prominent alumnus of the college, then endowed the Dane Professorship of Law, insisting that it be given to then Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story. For a while, the school was called Dane Law School, in 1829, John H. Ashmun, son of Eli Porter Ashmun and brother of George Ashmun, accepted a professorship and closed his Northampton Law School, with many of his students following him to Harvard. Enrollment remained low through the 19th century as university legal education was considered to be of little added benefit to apprenticeships in legal practice, at Harvard, Langdell also developed the case method of teaching law, now the dominant pedagogical model at U. S. law schools
6.
Boston College
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Boston College is a private Jesuit Catholic research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States,6 miles west of downtown Boston. It has 9,100 full-time undergraduates and almost 5,000 graduate students, the universitys name reflects its early history as a liberal arts college and preparatory school in Bostons South End. It is a member of the 568 Group and the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and its main campus is a historic district and features some of the earliest examples of collegiate gothic architecture in North America. Boston Colleges undergraduate program is currently ranked 31st in the National Universities ranking by U. S. News & World Report, Boston College is categorized as an R1, Highest Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Students at the university earned 21 Fulbright Awards in 2012, ranking the school eighth among American research institutions, Boston College sports teams are called the Eagles, and their colors are maroon and gold, the school mascot is Baldwin the Eagle. The Eagles compete in NCAA Division I as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference in all sports offered by the ACC, the mens and womens ice hockey teams compete in Hockey East. Boston Colleges mens ice hockey team is one of the most decorated programs in the nation, in 1825, Benedict Joseph Fenwick, S. J. A Jesuit from Maryland, became the second Bishop of Boston and he was the first to articulate a vision for a College in the City of Boston that would raise a new generation of leaders to serve both the civic and spiritual needs of his fledgling diocese. In 1827, Bishop Fenwick opened a school in the basement of his cathedral and his efforts to attract other Jesuits to the faculty were hampered both by Bostons distance from the center of Jesuit activity in Maryland and by suspicion on the part of the citys Protestant elite. Meanwhile, the vision for a college in Boston was sustained by John McElroy, with little fanfare, the colleges two buildings—a schoolhouse and a church—welcomed their first class of scholastics in 1859. Two years later, with as little fanfare, BC closed again and its short-lived second incarnation was plagued by the outbreak of Civil War and disagreement within the Society over the colleges governance and finances. BCs inability to obtain a charter from the anti-Catholic Massachusetts legislature only compounded its troubles, on March 31,1863, more than three decades after its initial inception, Boston Colleges charter was formally approved by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. BC became the second Jesuit institution of learning in Massachusetts. A Swiss Jesuit from French-speaking Fribourg, was selected as BCs first president, for most of the 19th century, BC offered a singular 7-year program corresponding to both high school and college. Its entering class in the fall of 1864 included 22 students, the curriculum was based on the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum, emphasizing Latin, Greek, philosophy, and theology. Boston Colleges enrollment reached nearly 500 by the turn of the 20th century, in 1907, newly installed President Thomas I. Gasson, S. J. determined that BCs cramped, urban quarters in Bostons South End were inadequate, inspired by John Winthrops early vision of Boston as a city upon a hill, he re-imagined Boston College as world-renowned university and a beacon of Jesuit scholarship. Less than a year after taking office, he purchased Amos Adams Lawrences farm on Chestnut Hill and he organized an international competition for the design of a campus master plan and set about raising funds for the construction of the new university
7.
University of California, Berkeley
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The University of California, Berkeley, is a public research university located in Berkeley, California. In 1960s, UC Berkeley was particularly noted for the Free Speech Movement as well as the Anti-Vietnam War Movement led by its students. S, Department of Energy, and is home to many world-renowned research institutes and organizations including Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and Space Sciences Laboratory. Faculty member J. R. Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, Lawrence Livermore Lab also discovered or co-discovered six chemical elements. The Academic Ranking of World Universities also ranks the University of California, Berkeley, third in the world overall, in 1866, the private College of California purchased the land comprising the current Berkeley campus. Ten faculty members and almost 40 students made up the new University of California when it opened in Oakland in 1869, billings was a trustee of the College of California and suggested that the college be named in honor of the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley. In 1870, Henry Durant, the founder of the College of California, with the completion of North and South Halls in 1873, the university relocated to its Berkeley location with 167 male and 22 female students and held its first classes. In 1905, the University Farm was established near Sacramento, ultimately becoming the University of California, by the 1920s, the number of campus buildings had grown substantially, and included twenty structures designed by architect John Galen Howard. Robert Gordon Sproul served as president from 1930 to 1958, by 1942, the American Council on Education ranked UC Berkeley second only to Harvard University in the number of distinguished departments. During World War II, following Glenn Seaborgs then-secret discovery of plutonium, UC Berkeley physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942. Along with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley is now a partner in managing two other labs, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, originally, military training was compulsory for male undergraduates, and Berkeley housed an armory for that purpose. In 1917, Berkeleys ROTC program was established, and its School of Military Aeronautics trained future pilots, including Jimmy Doolittle, both Robert McNamara and Frederick C. Weyand graduated from UC Berkeleys ROTC program, earning B. A. degrees in 1937 and 1938, in 1926, future fleet admiral Chester W. Nimitz established the first Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps unit at Berkeley. The Board of Regents ended compulsory military training at Berkeley in 1962, during the McCarthy era in 1949, the Board of Regents adopted an anti-communist loyalty oath. A number of faculty members objected and were dismissed, ten years passed before they were reinstated with back pay, in 1952, the University of California became an entity separate from the Berkeley campus. Each campus was given autonomy and its own Chancellor. Then-president Sproul assumed presidency of the entire University of California system, Berkeley gained a reputation for student activism in the 1960s with the Free Speech Movement of 1964 and opposition to the Vietnam War. In the highly publicized Peoples Park protest in 1969, students and the school conflicted over use of a plot of land, then governor of California Ronald Reagan called the Berkeley campus a haven for communist sympathizers, protesters, and sex deviants. Modern students at Berkeley are less active, with a greater percentage of moderates and conservatives
8.
U2
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U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin formed in 1976. The group consists of Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, initially rooted in post-punk, U2s sound grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music, yet has maintained an anthemic sound. Their lyrics, often embellished with spiritual imagery, focus on personal themes, popular for their live performances, the group has staged several ambitious and elaborate tours over their career. The band formed at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in 1976 when the members were teenagers with limited musical proficiency, within four years, they signed with Island Records and released their debut album Boy. Subsequent work such as their first UK number-one album War, by the mid-1980s, they had become renowned globally for their live act, highlighted by their performance at Live Aid in 1985. The groups fifth album, The Joshua Tree, made them international superstars and was their greatest critical and commercial success. Topping music charts around the world, it produced their only number-one singles in the US, With or Without You, facing a backlash and creative stagnation, U2 reinvented themselves in the 1990s through a new musical direction and public image. This experimentation continued through their album, Pop, and the PopMart Tour. U2 regained critical and commercial favour with the records All That You Cant Leave Behind and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and their U2 360° Tour of 2009–2011 is the highest-attended and highest-grossing concert tour in history. The groups thirteenth album, Songs of Innocence, was released at no cost through the iTunes Store, U2 have released 13 studio albums and are one of the worlds best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 170 million records worldwide. They have won 22 Grammy Awards, more than any other band, Rolling Stone ranked U2 at number 22 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. The band formed in Dublin on 25 September 1976, Larry Mullen Jr. then a 14-year-old student at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, posted a note on the schools notice board in search of musicians for a new band—six people responded. Mullen later described it as The Larry Mullen Band for about ten minutes, then Bono walked in and blew any chance I had of being in charge. Martin, who had brought his guitar and amplifier to the first practice but could not play, did not remain with the group, the group settled on the name Feedback because it was one of the few technical terms they knew. Most of their material consisted of cover songs, which the band admitted was not their forte. Some of the earliest influences on the band were emerging punk rock acts, such as the Jam, the Clash, Buzzcocks, the popularity of punk rock convinced the group that musical proficiency was not a prerequisite to being successful. In April 1977, Feedback played their first gig for an audience at St. Fintans High School. Shortly after, the changed their name to The Hype
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Friedrich Nietzsche
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He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869, Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life, and he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and he lived his remaining years in the care of his mother, and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, and died in 1900. Nietzsches body of work touched widely on art, philology, history, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from figures such as Schopenhauer, Wagner. His writing spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism, born on 15 October 1844, Nietzsche grew up in the small town of Röcken, near Leipzig, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He was named after King Frederick William IV of Prussia, who turned forty-nine on the day of Nietzsches birth, Nietzsches parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, a Lutheran pastor and former teacher, and Franziska Oehler, married in 1843, the year before their sons birth. They had two children, a daughter, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, born in 1846, and a second son, Ludwig Joseph. Nietzsches father died from an ailment in 1849, Ludwig Joseph died six months later. The family then moved to Naumburg, where they lived with Nietzsches maternal grandmother, after the death of Nietzsches grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house, now Nietzsche-Haus, a museum and Nietzsche study centre. Nietzsche attended a school and then, later, a private school, where he became friends with Gustav Krug, Rudolf Wagner. In 1854, he began to attend Domgymnasium in Naumburg, because his father had worked for the state the now-fatherless Nietzsche was offered a scholarship to study at the internationally recognized Schulpforta. He transferred and studied there from 1858 to 1864, becoming friends with Paul Deussen and he also found time to work on poems and musical compositions. Nietzsche led Germania, a music and literature club, during his summers in Naumburg. His end-of-semester exams in March 1864 showed a 1 in Religion and German, a 2a in Greek and Latin, a 2b in French, History, and Physics, while at Pforta, Nietzsche had a penchant for pursuing subjects that were considered unbecoming. The teacher who corrected the essay gave it a mark but commented that Nietzsche should concern himself in the future with healthier, more lucid. After graduation in September 1864, Nietzsche commenced studies in theology, for a short time he and Deussen became members of the Burschenschaft Frankonia. After one semester, he stopped his studies and lost his faith. In June 1865, at the age of 20, Nietzsche wrote to his sister Elisabeth, who was deeply religious, a letter regarding his loss of faith
10.
Nihilism
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Nihilism is a philosophical doctrine that suggests the lack of belief in one or more reputedly meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, moral nihilists assert that there is no inherent morality, and that accepted moral values are abstractly contrived. Nihilism may also take epistemological, ontological, or metaphysical forms, meaning respectively that, in some aspect, knowledge is not possible, movements such as Futurism and deconstruction, among others, have been identified by commentators as nihilistic. Nihilism has many definitions, and thus can describe multiple arguably independent philosophical positions, extreme metaphysical nihilism is commonly defined as the belief that nothing exists as a correspondent component of the self-efficient world. The American Heritage Medical Dictionary defines one form of nihilism as a form of skepticism that denies all existence. A similar skepticism concerning the world can be found in solipsism. However, despite the fact that both deny the certainty of objects true existence, the nihilist would deny the existence of self whereas the solipsist would affirm it, both these positions are considered forms of anti-realism. Epistemological nihilism is a form of skepticism in which all knowledge is accepted as being possibly untrue or as being unable to be confirmed true and this interpretation of existence must be based on resolution. Therefore, there is no way to surmise or measure the validity of mereological nihilism. Thus, the resolution with which the ant views the world it exists within is an important determining factor in how the ant experiences this within the world feeling. Existential nihilism is the belief that life has no meaning or value. With respect to the universe, existential nihilism posits that a human or even the entire human species is insignificant, without purpose. The meaninglessness of life is explored in the philosophical school of existentialism. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, in this way a moral nihilist believes that all moral claims are void of any truth value. An alternative scholarly perspective is that moral nihilism is a morality in itself, cooper writes, In the widest sense of the word morality, moral nihilism is a morality. An influential analysis of political nihilism is presented by Leo Strauss, the Russian Nihilist movement was a Russian trend in the 1860s that rejected all authority. Their name derives from the Latin nihil, meaning nothing, after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, the Nihilists gained a reputation throughout Europe as proponents of the use of violence for political change. The Nihilists expressed anger at what they described as the nature of the Eastern Orthodox Church and of the tsarist monarchy
11.
Existentialism
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While the predominant value of existentialist thought is commonly acknowledged to be freedom, its primary virtue is authenticity. Many existentialists have also regarded traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience. Søren Kierkegaard is generally considered to have been the first existentialist philosopher and he proposed that each individual—not society or religion—is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and living it passionately and sincerely, or authentically. Existentialism became popular in the years following World War II, and strongly influenced many disciplines besides philosophy, including theology, drama, art, literature, and psychology. The term is seen as a historical convenience as it was first applied to many philosophers in hindsight. In fact, while existentialism is generally considered to have originated with Kierkegaard, Sartre posits the idea that what all existentialists have in common is the fundamental doctrine that existence precedes essence, as scholar Frederick Copleston explains. Sartre himself, in a lecture delivered in 1945, described existentialism as the attempt to draw all the consequences from a position of consistent atheism and this assertion comes from two sources. The Norwegian philosopher Erik Lundestad refers to the Danish philosopher Fredrik Christian Sibbern, Sibbern is supposed to have had two conversations in 1841, the first with Welhaven and the second with Kierkegaard. This was then brought to Kierkegaard by Sibbern, the second claim comes from the Norwegian historian Rune Slagstad, who claims to prove that Kierkegaard himself said the term existential was borrowed from the poet. He strongly believes that it was Kierkegaard himself who said that Hegelians do not study philosophy existentially, on the other hand, the Norwegian historian Anne-Lise Seip is critical of Slagstad, and believes the statement in fact stems from the Norwegian literary historian Cathrinus Bang. The actual life of the individuals is what constitutes what could be called their true essence instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence others use to define them, thus, human beings, through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a meaning to their life. However, an existentialist philosopher would say such a wish constitutes an inauthentic existence - what Sartre would call bad faith, instead, the phrase should be taken to say that people are defined only insofar as they act and that they are responsible for their actions. For example, someone who acts cruelly towards other people is, by that act, furthermore, by this action of cruelty, such persons are themselves responsible for their new identity. This is as opposed to their genes, or human nature, as Sartre writes in his work Existentialism is a Humanism. Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterwards. Of course, the positive, therapeutic aspect of this is also implied, A person can choose to act in a different way. Here it is clear that since humans can choose to be either cruel or good, they are, in fact. Sartres definition of existentialism was based on Heideggers magnum opus Being and this way of living, Heidegger called average everydayness
