«The controversy surrounding self-fulfilling prophecies, while originally centered on proving their existence, has recently settled on the probability of such phenomenon occurring in a natural environment. While not directly cited in this resource...» Document abstract
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20 word format
Language : english
humanities/philosophy
school essay
date published
19/10/2007
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SummaryThe controversy surrounding self-fulfilling prophecies, while originally centered on proving their existence, has recently settled on the probability of such phenomenon occurring in a natural environment. While not directly cited in this resource guide, the original “Pygmalion Effect” experiment by Robert Rosenthal and Leonore Jacobson, while a success in its own self-absorbed goals, failed to make any connections outside of its own hypothesis. The Harvard professor and elementary school principal proved that teacher expectation can directly influence student achievement, but the experiment, conducted in a fixed environment, did not initially translate to the naturalistic world. The original teachers, the independent variables of the test, were told what to expect from their students, and although those students, a heterogeneous mixture of academic potentials, did in fact respond with positive correlation to the subsequent behaviors of their teachers, there was no guarantee that such cause and effect would occur in a literal classroom. In a series of experiments that followed in the decade after Rosenthal and Jacobson’s revolutionary yet flawed research, the naturalistic implications of the Pygmalion Effect were established, answering the question of whether or not teachers do make such drastic predictions, basing their expectations on first impressions and superficial observations and inadvertently fulfilling their own prophecies concerning their students.
Table of Contents- Most of the peer-reviewed journal articles concerning self-fulfilling prophecies acknowledge their existence, especially in the classroom.
- The other journal articles have taken the conclusions of Lee Jussim further.
- Teacher expectations and observations, as stated before, occur naturally.
- Popular media, for the most part, has focused on why such negative perceptions of adolescents exist in contemporary society.
- This image, as stated by Veronica Lacey in an issue of the Toronto Star, is 'that of a lost generation.
- The birth of MTV has definitely added a modern twist to the self-fulfilling prophecy.
- And not much can be expected from a 'lost generation.?
«It can be questioned whether the Greek and Roman people ever believed in their own gods. However, even such questioning cannot undermine the didactic value of their religion. Greek and Roman mythology thrived on storytelling; bards assumed the role...» Document abstract
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4 word format
Language : english
humanities/philosophy
presentation
date published
19/10/2007
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level : Advanced
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SummaryIt can be questioned whether the Greek and Roman people ever believed in their own gods. However, even such questioning cannot undermine the didactic value of their religion. Greek and Roman mythology thrived on storytelling; bards assumed the role of primitive priests, teaching moral reasoning to those who listened. The poets, the playwrights, and the satirists provided the ruling class with a never-ending flow of excuses for the decisions of their courts and forums. Greek and Roman leaders fought hard to sustain a patriarchal system, and it is no accident that women in these myths were either completely docile or utterly brash. They were examples from the government to the Greek and Roman women of proper behavior, of legal behavior, and of the consequences of defiance. Women listened, for these examples, shrouded in religious connotations, transformed disobedience into sin.
Table of Contents- Greece and Rome clearly divided the world into gendered spheres
- . From the Greek plays of Aeschylus to the Roman epics of Virgil and Ovid, readers are enthralled by the lives of these motherly slaughterers, these warrior women, these autonomous queens
- Ovid takes the idea of the warrior woman to a new level in his Metamorphoses with the introduction of Caenis.
- Perhaps even more tragic than the hopeless stories of the warrior women is the story of a woman who thought it her right, not to fight a pathetic war, but to lead a city.
- These women escaping sexual dominance and these women escaping sexual submission, these women seeking a new kind of power on the battlefields and the thrones, are all overshadowed by the most infamous woman in all of Greek and Roman mythology
- The happiest women in Greek and Roman mythology are the woman the modern world disdains
«For the most part, there are two desirable products of problem solving: personal pleasure and the happiness of others. This difference between selfishness and unselfishness has often defined moral decision making, the former being nothing less than...» Document abstract
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2 word format
Language : english
humanities/philosophy
school essay
date published
12/10/2007
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level : Advanced
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SummaryFor the most part, there are two desirable products of problem solving: personal pleasure and the happiness of others. This difference between selfishness and unselfishness has often defined moral decision making, the former being nothing less than sin and the latter being utterly commendable in its simple self-sacrifice. But neither case provides for a strong society; the egoist will never allow for anyone else to rise to power, but the altruist will never allow himself to rise to power. And a desire for power by all is what propels a nation to dominance. In the hopes of combining these extremities into a more effective model, James Mill and Jeremy Bentham designed the framework for a new belief known as utilitarianism. But its numerous successes and numerous failures leave many modern thinkers unable to accept, or more importantly, discredit the philosophy.
Table of Contents- For the most part, there are two desirable products of problem solving: personal pleasure and the happiness of others.
- Utilitarianism survives on the premise that happiness is the only intrinsic value.
- I have many issues with utilitarianism, and although the new focus on rules clears up a few of the injustices that bother me, it is still beyond misguided.
- When seeking the answers to moral problems, utilitarianism does not hold the answers.
«Mythology: the bookstore catalogue designation where religions go to die. When the believers cease believing in their gods, and when the gods cease believing in themselves. We often forget we once worshiped Zeus and those other “primitive” gods...» Document abstract
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3 word format
Language : english
humanities/philosophy
school essay
date published
12/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
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SummaryMythology: the bookstore catalogue designation where religions go to die. When the believers cease believing in their gods, and when the gods cease believing in themselves. We often forget we once worshiped Zeus and those other “primitive” gods with the same blind passion and fear as we dedicate to Jesus Christ. Yet religions, like the civilizations founded on their tomes and tablets, exist in cycles. They rise and fall. But during the rise, the fall is never visible; the end is forever beyond the horizon. Rome was not built in a day, but what Roman would not contest that stones crumble far quicker than they are carved? Dead religions, stripped of faith, litter the collective consciousness of mankind. Still, they are more pervasive, more persuasive, than we realize. More pervasive and persuasive, in fact, than they were alive. Embedded in culture, embedded in literature, mythologies reach further into the core of humanity than any active religion through the very distance that delegates them to a shelf somewhere behind history, behind World War II and the Middle East, as a study of ancient ways of life far from the shelves of Bible’s and the modern world.
Table of Contents- Mythology: the bookstore catalogue designation where religions go to die.
- Once, the myths of ancient Greece and Rome were not myths at all.
- With the death of a religion, with distance, meaning can exist.
- I believe we can find direction, instruction, better in the past than the present.
- One day, Christianity will join the Greeks and Romans, the Celtics and Norsemen, the Egyptians and Native Americans on the shelves of mythology.
«When following the determining factors of morality for either Kant or Mill one would generally arrive to the same conclusion on whether an action is moral or not. Although Kant believes that his method of deriving morality is best, Mill believes...» Document abstract
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3 word format
Language : english
humanities/philosophy
school essay
date published
09/10/2007
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level : General public
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SummaryWhen following the determining factors of morality for either Kant or Mill one would generally arrive to the same conclusion on whether an action is moral or not. Although Kant believes that his method of deriving morality is best, Mill believes that Kant’s process is lacking. “But when he (Kant) begins to deduce from this precept any of the actual duties of morality, he fails, almost grotesquely, to show that there would be any contradiction”. Although the end result is generally the same, there is a large difference between Kant’s and Mill’s views on the determining factors of human morality.
Table of Contents- When following the determining factors of morality for either Kant or Mill one would generally arrive to the same conclusion on whether an action is moral or not.
- It is what moves us to act from the rational to the empirical, or in other words, it allows us to use our mind to govern the body.
- Quite contrary to what Kant states, Mill believes that morality is derived from intensions as opposed to motivations.
- Kant and Mill have very contrasting views as to what actions one should take to act morally.
- After the initial introduction of and the final words about the divine figures, it becomes clear that the entire reference to the divine figures Epimetheus and Prometheus is merely an analogy meant to show the stances of both Socrates and Protagoras.
- The allusion to the divine figures helps us understand the argument between Socrates and Protagoras more clearly.
- This can be also viewed as in invitation for Protagoras to come back and talk with Socrates when he is ready to search for truth and when he is done search for a way to increase his own image.
«The Buddhist path leading toward nirvana is one properly undertaken with the understanding that enlightenment is something coming in degrees, and perhaps without a finite ‘ending point.’ It is not unlike the mathematical concept of a limit. “The...» Document abstract
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3 word format
Language : english
humanities/philosophy
school essay
date published
09/10/2007
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level : Advanced
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SummaryThe Buddhist path leading toward nirvana is one properly undertaken with the understanding that enlightenment is something coming in degrees, and perhaps without a finite ‘ending point.’ It is not unlike the mathematical concept of a limit. “The limit of ‘the function of x’ as x approaches infinity” illustrates the spiritual progress of a person on the Buddhist path. Though the infinity point might never be reached, except in the Buddha’s ultimate parinirvana, a practitioner can aim to approach the line nonetheless. Buddhism is thus a system of existential calculus. Accordingly, the Buddha’s teachings are divided into three vehicles customized to drive different sorts of people along the same path. The Hinayana constitutes the original teachings of the Shakyamuni Buddha to his monk followers. The Mahayana scriptures are composed of teachings that were transmitted to the Buddha’s more advanced students and thus constitute more refined knowledge. The Vajrayana tradition of terma mind-treasure allows for a continuous stream of new teachings to be uncovered by highly-realized practitioners beyond the time of the historical Buddha. The three yanas are thus skillful means (upaya) that allows all people to benefit from the teachings regardless of their current position along the curve towards enlightenment; each ‘yana’ assumes a different amount of life understanding and teaches accordingly. All teach, as summarized by aphorism 183 of the Dhammapadda, “not to do any evil, to cultivate good, to purify one’s mind (Rahula, 131).
Table of Contents- The Buddhist path leading toward nirvana is one properly undertaken with the understanding that enlightenment is something coming in degrees, and perhaps without a finite ‘ending point.?
- The Hinayana assumes no previous understanding of the ‘function' which processes an individual ‘x' along the path towards enlightenment.
- The ten stages of bodhisattva practice
- The Mahayana's school of Citta-Matra (mind-only) incorporates theories which allow for a practical application of selfless samadhi.
- The three yanas each produce enlightened masters of distinct personalities
- The Prajnaparamita Sutra decries the false-logic which could give rise to despair at the length of ‘time' required for enlightenment in the Mahayana paradigm.
«“For doubting pleases me no less than knowing.” This quote by Dante which Montaigne uses in his essays strikes at the heart of his ideas about education. He believes that the ancient ways of Aristotle, where one learns through the text of learned...» Document abstract
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3 word format
Language : english
humanities/philosophy
school essay
date published
08/10/2007
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level : General public
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Summary“For doubting pleases me no less than knowing.” This quote by Dante which Montaigne uses in his essays strikes at the heart of his ideas about education. He believes that the ancient ways of Aristotle, where one learns through the text of learned men, are outdated because it does not force one to think for themselves. When someone begins to doubt it means they are finally beginning to analyze and question the validity of what they have been told, and only in this way can achieve true knowledge. Montaigne further stresses that the best way to learn is through real life experiences, rather than being cooped up in a room with a tutor. This “ancient” way of learning was the only thing that Edgar, from Shakespeare’s “King Lear”, ever knew. Growing up the son of a nobleman he was isolated from the world and his only true knowledge cam from what he had read in books or what was taught to him by tutors. As a consequence of this childhood, Edgar’s naivety led to his banishment from the kingdom where he became disguised as a beggar roaming the countryside. Only when he became in contact with the real world as a beggar and not a nobleman did his education really begin.
Table of Contents- 'For doubting pleases me no less than knowing.' This quote by Dante which Montaigne uses in his essays strikes at the heart of his ideas about education.
- In the beginning of the play Edgar is shown in his 'uneducated' state, easily tricked by his wicked brother.
- Edgar is next found in the play in Act III Scene 4 when he encounters Lear, Kent, and the fool in the countryside.
- Edgar thought that he had gone as far as he could go into despair seeing the mad King, but he sinks even lower when he comes upon his father in Act IV.
- The education of Edgar is put into action in the final scene of the play when he confronts his traitorous brother.
«In an attempt to test the Aristotelian method discussed in Nicomachean Ethics, I have chosen to discuss the dilemma of cheating. I have chosen this topic in an attempt to be as impartial as possible while discussing at and I have a thorough...» Document abstract
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2 word format
Language : english
humanities/philosophy
school essay
date published
08/10/2007
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level : General public
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SummaryIn an attempt to test the Aristotelian method discussed in Nicomachean Ethics, I have chosen to discuss the dilemma of cheating. I have chosen this topic in an attempt to be as impartial as possible while discussing at and I have a thorough knowledge of the subject taking part in and witnessing it. Throughout the paper, I will not attempt to force my own views of the subject into this paper, but rather analyze the idea using Aristotle’s method. Aristotle did not guarantee that his method is fool proof and it might be discovered that he in fact leads people to the wrong conclusions about certain dilemmas.
Table of Contents- In an attempt to test the Aristotelian method discussed in Nicomachean Ethics, I have chosen to discuss the dilemma of cheating.
- First off, we must establish if Harry is making this decision voluntarily or is it involuntarily made out of ignorance.
- It is now important to discuss the conflicts of virtues that arise from the choice with which Harry must deal.
- Adding to the discussion is Aristotle's idea about the Doctrine of Mean.
«The concept of truth is the central aspect of religion. What is truth? How is it attained? These questions have been the focal points of theological discussion throughout history. Gandhi suggested that truth can be found in his concepts of...» Document abstract
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3 word format
Language : english
humanities/philosophy
school essay
date published
08/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : General public
requested 7 times
SummaryThe concept of truth is the central aspect of religion. What is truth? How is it attained? These questions have been the focal points of theological discussion throughout history. Gandhi suggested that truth can be found in his concepts of Satyagraha, or total self-renunciation, and Ahimsa (non-violence). He believed that truth can only be found by living frugally and without attachment to worldly desires. Gandhi was a pluralist who held the belief that all religions are paths to salvation and that truth lies within each individual’s willingness to sacrifice worldly goods and live a life of spirituality.
Table of Contents- The concept of truth is the central aspect of religion. What is truth' How is it attained?
- In order to understand the teachings of Gandhi, one must first understand Gandhi himself.
- Although essentially a pluralist, Gandhi was raised as a Hindu and grew up with Hindu values.
- The Hindu goal of losing attachment to worldly desires strongly appealed to Gandhi.
- Despite his fondness of Hindu values, Gandhi did not close his eyes to the weaknesses and problems of modern day Hinduism.
- Gandhi's first experience with Christianity was not a pleasant one.
- The New Testament appealed to Gandhi much more than the Old Testament.
- The uniqueness of Gandhi's path to truth lies in its individuality. Gandhi uses religion to support his path but it is not a necessity.
«Experience of direct union with God is most often reported to be of an ineffable nature that transcends any means of description. Mystical visions, however, afford the subject of such experiences the ability to interpret, through the hermeneutics of...» Document abstract
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5 word format
Language : english
humanities/philosophy
term papers
date published
03/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 2 times
SummaryExperience of direct union with God is most often reported to be of an ineffable nature that transcends any means of description. Mystical visions, however, afford the subject of such experiences the ability to interpret, through the hermeneutics of religious symbolism, what might otherwise be incomprehensible to the rational mind. In the Islamic Sufi context, visions most commonly take the form of important religious figures; Allah, the Prophet Muhammad, angels, saints and a devotee’s shaikh are symbols likely to manifest their presence in mystical visions. Symbolism is not limited to discrete characters in Sufi life, however; abstract and personal metaphors occur as well. These symbols serve as relatively concrete entities upon which to hang the ultimate and inexpressible truths to which mystics claim to gain access. Using firsthand accounts of Sufis (classical masters and modern novices alike), and contemporary analytical methodologies, this paper will examine the process of training that facilitates mystical experience, as well as the psychological principles which govern the content and interpretation of the visions themselves.
Table of Contents- Experience of direct union with God is most often reported to be of an ineffable nature that transcends any means of description
- The Sufi path prescribes specific steps to guide an adherent towards mystical experience
- The universe of instruments is closed and the rules of his game are to make do with ‘whatever is at hand', that is, with a set of tools and materials which is always finite and is also heterogeneous.
- A veritable manifestation/theophany (tajalli), however, is that which occurs when there is consciousness only of the manifestation, without any witnessing.
- The field of dream interpretation has flourished in both its western and Islamic settings
- Rather than greedily requiring haughty visions of union with God, Al-Sha'rani valued each piece of representational advice given to him
- The guidelines determined by al-Sha'rani regarding his ‘dreams of instruction' apply directly to a series of dreams that occurred during the penultimate week of Özelsel's retreat
- Özelsel's final vision, which occurs the day before she is to leave the halvet, is a fully-conscious unitized experience that illustrates the interplay between cognitive and theological dream interpretation.
- There seems to be conclusive evidence suggesting that adherence to a prescribed path allows a mystically-inclined individual the means to express, in the vernacular of that tradition, what might be universal truths of existence
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