Plotinus on The One and the Good
In Ennead VI, 9, Plotinus discusses the nature of The One with respect to goodness, and particularly the supreme concept of goodness, which he calls the Good. The One is a model for the highest virtue or principle; however, we find that it is difficult to characterize The One in such a way because Plotinus explains that it supercedes all description that we attribute to it. While Plotinus’ account of The One is an interesting argument that develops somewhat logically, in the end, it becomes difficult to reconcile the lack of qualities of The One with Plotinus’ claim that it is the cause of existence.
In his passage on The One and the Good, Plotinus begins by saying that The One is not an intellective existence, meaning that it does not think. He then states that The One does not exhibit any sort of motion because it predates motion and thought as well. This is important to the development of the rest of Plotinus’ philosophy because it provides the context that The One existed before both thought and material objects. The reason for the latter is because motion is fundamental to matter and The One existed before motion.
Plotinus continues and states that The One is not in a state of ignorance despite its lack of knowledge or thought. The reason for this is because ignorance requires knowledge to be ignorant of, and The One existed before knowledge. “Ignorance presupposes a dual relationship: one does not know another. But The One, in its aloneness, can neither know nor be ignorant of anything.” The One exists, therefore, effectively at a time before time existed. The only way to characterize The One’s state at that point is that it existed...
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...ast sound instantly passed between the future and the past, it only existed in the future which was when we heard it. Therefore, even if the present has no time value, it is a reference point for all time that has passed.
Augustine’s conflict between people being able to measure time and the difficulty in doing so is understandable because of his perspective on the present. He claims sensibly that the present moment has no overall value, but that doesn’t mean that in it we can’t assign points in time that pass and compare them. His conclusion arises because he doesn’t consider the possibility that time of something in the past still has value in the future as long as the difference between its start and end points are known. It is not surprising that he excludes this possibility, however, because he believes that time in the past is immeasurable.
...ckefeller, in order to soften the appearance of him and his company, he also engaged in philanthropy and founded the University of Chicago and the Rockefeller foundation which helped educational institutions.
A second and stronger objection to Mackie’s version of the problem of evil is explained to us using the terms 1st and 2nd order goods and evils. 1st order goods/evils are purely physical. Examples are pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. It is claimed by many theists that 1st order evils such as pain and suffering are necessary for 2nd order goods like courage and charity. However there exists what Mackie calls a “fatal objection” to this claim and that is that along with 2nd order goods there must also exist 2nd order evil...
It also follows that God, not as benevolent as could be hoped, prefers the maximization of good (2) as opposed to the minimization of evil (1). This is disquieting for the individual who might be the victim of suffering a “greater good.”
Time is a difficult topic to handle in metaphysics; many problems arise. If you support A-series, which involves change, you are left to wonder the rate at which time passes. I cannot put my support behind static time; time appears to pass and in passing change occurs. The only aspect of time that appears to stay frozen are events in the past. However, events have to change from future to present and then to past before they can become static in the past. Even though there are clear objections to theories about time, I cannot support McTaggart’s bold claim that time is unreal. I can only look at time from my perspective. Ultimately there is so much change that occurs in me and around me as time passes that I cannot view time to be unreal and I am left to disregard McTaggart’s argument.
...e’s theory relies upon his belief that because there is no creator, human beings have no essence, and so they are “left alone, without excuse” and “born without reason.” He says that people realize this “the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.” Similarly, White too admits to Black that he has always hated life and that when he realized that religion was just a “guise,” his hatred turned into boredom (138). White’s skepticism about life and God echoes throughout the play and through the suicidal choice that White makes even before the dialogue begins. Comparably, Father Vincent Minceli voices similar concerns about Sartre, concluding that Sartre’s philosophy leads directly to despair and suicide. McCarthy’s comparison of White and Sartre is remarkable, as both are not only atheists, but also convey life’s useless nature through using synonymous phrases.
their praises to God would not be so meaningful. For Augustine, it is free will
Augustine was born in Tagaste (modern Souk Ahras, Algeria) in 354 and died almost seventy-six years later in Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) on the Mediterranean coast sixty miles away. In the years between he lived out a career that seems to moderns to bridge the gap between ancient pagan Rome and the Christian middle ages. But to Augustine, as to his contemporaries, that gap separated real people and places they knew, not whole imaginary ages of past and future. He lived as we do, in the present, full of uncertainty.
Before we dive into what Augustine has to say about free will, we must first understand what the problem is. In The HarperCollins Dictionary of Philosophy, the problem of free will is defined as:
Why does St. Augustine seek God? Through his Confessions we come to understand that he struggled a great deal with confusion about his faith, before finally and wholeheartedly accepting God into his life. But we never get a complete or explicit sense of what led Augustine to search for God in the first place. Did he feel a void in his life? Was he experiencing particular problems in other relationships that he thought a relationship with God would solve for him? Or perhaps he sought a sense of security from religion? A closer analysis of the text of St. Augustine’s Confessions will provide some insight into these fundamental questions.
This paper attempts to evaluate the extent to which renowned scholar, Peter P. Ekeh’s claim applies true to the contemporary politics of the Democratic Republic of Congo by tracing its historical struggle with slave trade and colonisation; and its resultant internecine warfare and exploitation of resources.
Fingerprints are used to identify an unknown victim, suspect or witness to confirm records, and most importantly, as relationships between a suspect and a crime (6). Even if you have no initial suspects, Fingerprints can create leads, and sometimes provide clues about the criminal 's occupation, sex, and size (6). Forensic scientists have been using fingerprints as identification for centuries. Fingerprint identification is one of the most important identification factors in criminal investigation because of one thing, their uniqueness (8). A person’s fingerprints could not change over time. Permanent scarring is the only way a fingerprint could change. Furthermore, fingerprints are different on every person; they could be used simply to log onto a phone or to reopen a cold
In this article, Cavadini delves into Augustine’s idea of ideology and solidarity. He begins by bringing the reader back to book 9 of the Confessions and says that we were invited to reflect on the eternal life of the saints (93). Augustine wants to use imagination to explore what eternity will be like and what one will do there. Cavadini explains how Augustine wants to explore the possibilities of eternity, and he posits a possibility that “The bodily eye might be able to see something immaterial directly,” in other words, we will be able to see God face to face (94). This possibility has no conclusive evidence, but there are many prophetic scripture texts that points to this idea. Augustine analyzes the book of Job and the Gospel of Luke to show passages about man being able to see God.
Sartre goes on to describe the views of an existentialist. An existentialist “states that if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a being whose existence comes before its essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept of it” (Sartre 22). This quote explains that god is the being(s) who existed before classification, but spiritually empowered the world known today.
The unemployed are such a well known poverty group that many people picture unemployment and poverty as being the same. It is important to realize that this is false. Not all who are unemployed are impoverished, and not everyone living in poverty is unemployed. It is true however, that the unemployed form a large poverty group with a diverse and challenging set of problems facing them. In exploring some of these problems, much more can be learned about the plight of the unemployed living in poverty.