Ancient Catholic Philosophy: God

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Questions and Answers

Which of the following best describes the concept of 'God as Immanent'?

  • God as beyond the ordinary world of human experience.
  • God as not outside of us or distinct from the Universe. (correct)
  • God as an impersonal first principle of physics in the Universe.
  • God as a distant mystery, ideal longed for but not fully known.

Religious syncretism involves rejecting any variations in the conceptions of God.

False (B)

What makes up moral evil?

done by man/perpetrated

The belief that faith is irrational and proofs of God's existence are utterly irrelevant is associated with ______.

<p>Kierkegaard</p>
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Match the following arguments for the existence of God with their proponents:

<p>The Cosmological Argument = Thomas Aquinas Argument from Design = William Paley, C. Darwin The Ontological Argument = St. Anselm</p>
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Which of the following best describes 'Rational Faith' as proposed by I. Kant?

<p>Belief in God is rationally necessary if one is to be a morally good person. (A)</p>
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'ritual' in religion detracts from the concrete and visible ways of practicing faith.

<p>False (B)</p>
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What is 'ontology' as described in the text, in your own words?

<p>the study of what is real</p>
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The branch of philosophy that attempts to say what reality is and provides an interpretation of the world is called ______.

<p>metaphysics</p>
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Match the following pre-Socratic philosophers with their primary element of reality:

<p>Thales = Water Anaximenes = Air Heraclitus = Fire</p>
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Which philosopher synthesized pre-Socratic materialism and immaterialism with the concept of Ideals/Forms?

<p>Plato (B)</p>
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Aristotle rejected the duality of reality versus appearance, believing that forms of things are separate from the things themselves.

<p>False (B)</p>
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What is Idealism in philosophy?

<p>mind is reality</p>
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The view that 'to be is to be perceived' (Esse est percipi) is associated with ______.

<p>George Berkeley</p>
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Match the following viewpoints of René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Georg Wilhelm von Leibniz:

<p>Descartes = Pluralist Spinoza = Monist Leibniz = Plurality of substances that cannot interact</p>
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Which of the following is a characteristic of Teleology?

<p>Views the world as one that has a goal, a purpose, and is continually developing toward it. (A)</p>
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Epistemology is defined as the theory of reality.

<p>False (B)</p>
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What is the difference between Empirical Truth and Contingent Truth?

<p>Empirical truth is true because of facts/experience, while Contingent Truth is dependent upon a circumstance.</p>
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The Correspondence Theory of Truth states that a statement is true if and only if it ______ to the facts.

<p>corresponds</p>
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Match the philosopher with their concept of emotions:

<p>William James = Emotions are feelings caused by changes in the body. David Hume = Reason is and ought to be the slave of Passions (emotions). Kierkegaard = Passions</p>
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Flashcards

Rational Faith

Belief in God is rationally necessary for being a morally good person, grounding morality and justice.

kierkegaard's irrational Faith

Faith is a deeply personal, passionate commitment, not subject to proof; it's a leap.

Mysticism

A special experience or vision that can't be fully described, involving direct experience of God.

Ritual

Gives religion life, bringing practice to life in concrete, visible ways.

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Tradition

Cultural elements, founders, historical context shaping religious foundations.

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Ontology

In philosophy, it is the study of what is real and how to establish a hierarchy of reality.

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Metaphysics

An attempt to explain what reality is; an interpretation of the world.

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Thales' Materialism

Reality is ultimately water.

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Pythagoras's Immaterialism

Reality is ultimately number.

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Plato's Worlds

Unseen, eternal realm is more real than the material world; 'Logos’.

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Aristotle's Metaphysics

Substance + Essence coexist in the material world.

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Idealism

The view that our ideas define our world, mind most essential.

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Teleology

Views the world as having a goal, purpose, and continuous development toward it.

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Immanuel Kant

Everything we know is based on experience, shaped by mental categories.

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epistemology

The theory of knowledge.

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Necessary Truth

True by definition

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Empirical Truth

Truth because of facts/experience.

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Contingent Truth

Truth depends on circumstances.

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Linguistic Determinism

The view that language shapes experience.

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Coherence Theory

A belief is true if it best fits one's entire experience and beliefs.

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Study Notes

Chapter 3: God

  • Theism, atheism, and agnosticism need to be defined
  • Religious syncretism needs to be defined
  • Conceptions of God vary widely over centuries: from an old man prone to wrath to continuously active Creator
  • St. John equated God with love
  • St. Thomas Aquinas saw God as a continuously active Creator
  • Voltaire, T. Jefferson, and deists viewed God as an impersonal first principle of physics in the Universe.
  • God can be seen as a distant mystery, longed for but not fully known
  • God can be viewed as immediate and constantly present in everyday life
  • God can be seen as an abstract force or impersonal cosmic power
  • It is possible to know God through personal experience or relationship
  • God as transcendent is beyond the ordinary world of human experience
  • God as immanent is not outside of or distinct from the Universe
  • Pantheism, associated with Spinoza, views God as totally immanent
  • In pantheism, God is everything, identical to the universe
  • Hegel saw God as a Universal Spirit
  • God as process means constantly in the process of development
  • God as a transcendent Creator is associated with Deism
  • Kierkegaard saw God as the unknown object of faith
  • God can be seen as a moral being

The Problem of Evil

  • Moral evil is done by man/perpetrated
  • Non-moral evil includes diseases and natural disasters
  • Possible responses or answers to the problem of evil:
    • Denial of evil
    • Least of the evils, which is no more than necessary except what we bring upon ourselves
    • Aesthetic Totality Solution says evil is part of the aesthetic whole over the long term
    • Free-Will Solution
    • Justice in the Afterlife
    • God's "mysterious ways"

Faith and Reason: Ways of Believing

  • The Cosmological Argument, associated with Thomas Aquinas, posits God as the first cause of everything
  • William Paley and C. Darwin developed the Argument from Design
  • St. Anselm in the 11th century proposed the Ontological Argument: the very idea of God necessitates His existence
  • I. Kant argued that belief in God is rationally necessary for one to be a morally good person, forming Rational Faith
  • Kierkegaard advocated Irrational Faith, stating proofs of God's existence are utterly irrelevant to faith
  • Faith is a personal, passionate concern, not subject to "proof," but a commitment, a leap of faith
  • Pascal's Wager
  • Mysticism involves special experience or vision that cannot be completely described, offering a direct experience of God

Religious Tolerance: Ritual, Tradition, and Spirituality

  • Ritual in all its variety gives life to religion, bringing practice to life in concrete and visible ways
  • Tradition includes cultural elements, founders, and historical contexts of religious foundations like Jesus in 1st Century Palestine and Muhammad in 7th Century Arabia
  • Historical and traditional particularities shape each culture and religion
  • Spirituality is present in all religions and people, with every individual possessing the capacity for it

Chapter 4: The Nature of Reality

  • Ontology studies what is real and seeks to establish a hierarchy of levels of reality, including common sense, scientific, and spiritual ontologies
  • Metaphysics attempts to define reality and provide an interpretation of the world
  • Cosmology explores how we think most real things came into being
  • Two tests for determining what is most real:
    • What is most real is what all else depends upon
    • What is most real cannot be created or destroyed

First Metaphysicians: Pre-Socratics

  • Thales (624-546 BC): Reality is ultimately water (Materialist)
  • Anaximenes (585-528 BC): Reality is essentially air (Materialist)
  • Heraclitus (536-470 BC): Reality is like Fire (Materialist)
  • Democritus (460-371 BC): Reality consists of tiny atoms (Materialist)
  • Pythagoras (571-497 BC): Reality is ultimately number (Immaterialist)
  • Parmenides (539-492 BC): Reality is unchanging and unknown to us (Immaterialist)
  • Zeno of Elea (5th C. BC): Reality is unchanging and motion is unreal (Immaterialist)
  • Heraclitus (536-470 BC): Reality is change with an underlying Logos, or logic

Plato and Aristotle's Metaphysics

  • Plato synthesizes pre-Socratic materialism and immaterialism with Ideals/Forms
  • Plato believed the unseen eternal world is more real than the seen material one and identified Logos as the mind of God
  • Plato's concept of another immaterial and eternal world influenced St. Augustine
  • Aristotle's Metaphysics was lost to the West until the 12th century AD
  • Aristotle was a more common sense thinker, defining reality as Substance + Essence
  • Aristotle believed substance and essence coexist in the material world
  • Aristotle considered reality to be an everyday material reality
  • Aristotle's view of a living, growing, goal-directed universe influenced St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century
  • Metaphysics seeks the origin of the universe and questions its existence
  • The Pre-Socratic approach picks out one element to describe reality
  • The Platonic approach postulates a "world" behind this one to explain things
  • The Aristotelian approach assumes a common sense world and then shows its complexity

Mind and Metaphysics

  • Idealists believe the mind is reality, and what is real is mind, our own or God's
  • The question of the Mind is a key difference between Ancient and Early Modern/Modern philosophers
  • Three views of mind and its place in reality:
    • Minds are but one kind of substance (René Descartes)
    • Minds are part of a larger substance (Baruch Spinoza)
    • Minds are the only substance (Georg Wilhelm von Leibniz)
  • Descartes was a pluralist who believed in body, mind, and God as separate substances that could not adequately solve the problem of how the first two interact with each other
  • Spinoza was a monist who treated mind and body as separate attributes of one universal substance and that individuality is an illusion, as is freedom
  • G.W. von Leibniz agreed with Descartes on a plurality of substances and with Spinoza on substances not interacting
  • Leibniz wrote of monads—immaterial substances created by God that do not interact
  • George Berkeley (1685-1753) advocated Subjective idealism asserting, "To be is to be perceived" - Esse est percipi
  • The German Idealists in the 18th and 19th Centuries formed spectacular forms of Idealism
  • Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) based everything on experience and sees the world as constituted by the categories our minds impose
  • Kant theorized that our minds are formatted to ensure space is a certain way
  • Kant had a 2 world vision: Worlds of nature and knowledge and actions, morals and faith
  • Knowledge involves studying sciences and perceiving the world through concepts
  • Practical matters entail daily tasks and religious belief/activity
  • Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was pessimistic and viewed both sides of Kant's metaphysical dualism as irrational; the world of knowledge is an illusion
  • What is real is what's inside of us—The Will─makes us have desires and passions and drives us to act
  • Kant thought the Will was rational
  • Schopenhauer thought the Will was irrational, a violent force creating desires with no purpose and thought the solution was aesthetic detachment
  • Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel envisioned a single cosmos with constant internal conflict and an all-embracing Spirit and viewed the world as a universal mind
  • Idealism views our ideas as defining our world and sees the mind as the most essential thing
  • Teleology views the world as having a goal, purpose and is continually developing toward it

Assumptions Underlying Western Philosophy, Science and Theology

  • What is ultimately real is that which endures throughout change
  • Reality is somehow a unity
  • Teleological view of the Universe:
    • Plato thought perfect unchanging
    • Aristotle-Thought thinking about itself
    • Moderns saw the universe as a mechanical machine working according to natural laws
    • Kant & Newton -Universe as a machine but God provided purpose to His Creation
  • Ancient Greeks, Eastern and African religions, and Native American religious beliefs were all animists and held a teleological view of the universe as ALIVE with spirits in constant process
  • The whole history of Western Philosophy, Science and Theology has struggled toward eternity and unity

Chapter 5: The Search for Truth

  • Epistemology is the theory of knowledge
  • Truth can correspond to facts or be based upon faith
  • Two Kinds of Truth:
    • True because of facts
    • True because of reasoning called necessary truths because they cannot possibly be false (i.e. 2+2=4; A+B=B+A)
  • Empirical Truth is true because of facts/because of experience
  • Contingent Truth depends upon a circumstance
  • Necessary Truth is opposite of Contingent Truth and is true a priori
  • Rationalism vs. Empiricism: two schools of thought that have dominated philosophical questions about finding truth
  • Rationalism believes human reason provides the final answers to philosophical questions
  • Rationalists include moderns like Descartes, Spinoza, von Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel, as well as ancients/medievals like Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas
  • Empiricism rejects innate ideas and accepts that all knowledge comes from experience such as John Locke, David Hume, J.S. Mill, and Bertrand Russell
  • Innate ideas are accepted by rationalists and rejected by empiricists.

The Presuppositions of Knowledge

  • The world exists
  • Principle of Universal Causality
  • Skepticism-two-world assumption—outer—physical world; inner-senses & experiences
  • Doubts might mean we cannot actually know the world at all or be sure that we know the world at all
  • Descartes' "Cogito ergo Sum" means "I cannot be wrong about the fact that I am thinking, for the fact that I am thinking about thinking already proves that I'm thinking."
  • Descartes' Ontological Argument re: the existence of God—“the fact that I exist and can think and have an idea of God, it must be the case that God exists."
  • David Hume's Skepticism suggests only two kinds of truth: matter of fact & truth of reason
  • David Hume argues that any belief unproven one way or the other is unjustified
  • Resolution of Skepticism—I. Kant
  • Linguistic Determinism posits that language structures the way we experience and think

The Nature of Truth

  • The Correspondence Theory of Truth states that a statement is true if and only if it corresponds to the facts
  • The Coherence Theory of Truth rejects the Correspondence Theory and states that truth is a statement or belief that fits in with the overall network of one's experience and beliefs
  • The Pragmatic Theory of Truth supplants Coherence Theory with whether it allows us to function better–whether it "works"
  • Rationality refers to our activities and methods of finding truth through reasoning
  • Irrationality is founded on bad reasons, lack of evidence, or a refusal to think clearly

Subjective Truth and the Problem of Relativism

  • Objective Truth is independent of personal opinions
  • Subjective Truth depends on the subject and their beliefs
  • Relativism suggests what is true for one may not be true for another, but in extreme form, is nonsense

Chapter 6: The Self

  • The Real Self, or Soul, is the Essential Self that doesn't change from one context to the next
  • The Essential Self is the set of characteristics that define a particular person, defined in terms of Self as Body
  • Self-Identity characterizes one's essential self
  • The theory that the essential self is in the mind dates back to ancient times
  • Descartes was a known defender of the theory of self as consciousness, stated, "The individual self is the first thing that each of us can know for certain and that this self is the thinking self-the self that is aware of itself."
  • John Locke believed Self resides in memory as collected memories throughout life starting with Tabula Rasa at birth
  • Alternative Conceptions of Self as Consciousness include memory, desire, whim, will, passion, rationality, and thinking

The Self and Its Emotions

  • Kierkegaard: Passions
  • Nietzsche: Cultivate Aesthetic sensibilities
  • William James: Emotions are feelings caused by changes in the body
  • David Hume: "Reason is and ought to be the slave of Passions (emotions)"
  • Intentionality is the aspect of emotions by which they are directed at the world

Opposition of Emotion vs Rationality

  • "Intelligence of Emotions"—w/t emotions, we'd be incapable of any rational decision-making at all
  • Emotion helps us determine which considerations are more important than others as well as gives us insight and knowledge
  • Emotion consists of feeling and intentionality and usually with an impulse to action
  • Emotion plays an important role in shaping our identity, in how we feel about things as well as what we know, remember (memory), how we think (Rationality), and what we care about (Emotions).
  • The Egocentric Predicament begins with the claim that the individual self is at the center of all of our experience [Ego] and the predicament is because it is an intolerable idea that we cannot ever get beyond our own self to know the existence of others.
  • J.S. Mill says we can know what is going on in other people's minds only by analogy or inference such as facial expressions, tone of voice, body language etc.
  • The Mind-Body Problem considers the identification of the self in consciousness as opposed to the ID of the self with one's physical body and how they interact
    • Behaviorism denies mental events, insisting there are only patterns of behavior and that what we call mental is simply a predisposition to behave in certain ways
    • Identity Theory views mental events (pain) and brain processes as the same thing though they have different properties and deserve different descriptions
  • Others argue that the Mind-Body Problem is a false dichotomy—a misunderstanding and stated we cannot understand human consciousness apart from the whole human being-in a body and as part of various groups
  • The Self as Choice asks, "Who Am I?"
  • The Existentialist position by J.P. Sartre says Self is in the future, always working towards it as we try to make ourselves into something/someone
  • Facts of birth such as year/era of birth, culture, race, family, and socio-economic position/social status of birth family affect the Self in life
  • Transcendence—Self isn't defined by facts about us but by what we make of those facts and how we transcend them─go beyond facts of birth and life experience
  • R.W. Emerson (1803-1882) was a Transcendentalist that said Self-Reliance
  • The Authentic Self is at best our image of what we want to be, to which we strive with more or less success and persistence
  • Bad Faith is denial of responsibility for one's self and includes trying to excuse oneself from responsibility for what you are and what you will become by pretending that your life has been irrevocably defined by certain facts instead of recognizing that one can try to make of those facts what one wishes.
  • The No Self, Many Selves discussion rests upon the assumption that every one has 1 & only 1 self
  • Hume was a skeptic who found no self in consciousness like Descartes or memory like Locke, but only complicated clusters of experiences and ideas but not a single self per se
  • Sartre rejected the self in the traditional sense and stated said self always lies ahead of us in the near and farther future.
  • Buddhism rejects the notion of the self as an illusion that separates us and distances us from the rest of humanity and creation.
  • Hinduism believes the Real self is a transpersonal self, a self that is the same in all individuals, but the individual is an illusion
  • G.W.F. Hegel wrote the Phenomenology of Spirit in 1809: Rejected the individual self in favor of an all-embracing cosmic sense of self, as Universal Spirit and our true identity is a universal self-identity

The Self as Social

  • Individual identity and achievement are basic premises for our culture
  • Pursuit of Happiness is a relatively recent concept from the Enlightenment in the 18th C
  • Pre-Modern people lived/existed within a communal context or network of interconnections
  • Identity in ancient & medieval cultures was identity within/as part of the community and tribe
  • Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) said we are originally part of a community from birth and that the challenge is to learn within this context how to be an individual how to be authentic.
  • There are thousands of bonds between people like love, hate, envy, competition, fear, friendship, kinship, and collegiality
  • Two Views of our Conceptions of Relationships:
    • vs. Them—presumes basic differences, antagonistic, and competition
    • We - presupposes a shared identity, cooperation, differences are secondary, and shared mutual identity-teammates, love partners etc
  • The sense of isolation/loneliness is not part of the universal human condition but rather as an inevitable consequence of our extremely mobile and individualistic society

Chapter 7: Freedom

  • Freedom is a presupposition of the good life and is a logical pre-requisite for morality and moral responsibility
  • Determinism is the view that there's no human freedom at all, of choice or action but all events must have an explanatory cause [principle of universal causality]
  • The schizophrenic view of freedom by Bergmann in 1977 has two points:
    • Traditional view—freedom is wonderful, gives humans status over animals, the assumed desire and goal of everyone
    • Dilemma between freedom as something with which we're born (endowed by our Creator) and something to which we aspire and long for
  • Intrinsic Freedom is our natural free will
  • Extrinsic Freedom is something for which we must fight (external to ourselves)
  • Escape from Freedom occurs when freedom as frightening to some people who retreat into unquestioning obedience to authority or let others or circumstances dictate big decisions for them
  • Negative freedom entails being free from something
  • Positive Freedom is freedom to do something
  • The Fascist Conception of Freedom is the freedom of the state and the freedom of its citizens to obey
  • Rational Freedom arises when a person acts freely when they act in accordance with reason—after thought and deliberation, they make a rational and deliberate decision
  • Emotional Freedom exists when a person identifies most with their emotions—i.e. people who are genuinely in love are most free when they express their emotions to each other
  • Capricious Freedom stems from acting entirely on whim for no reason whatsoever
  • Free will vs. Determinism
  • Indeterminism argues determinism is false and is not the same as Freedom
  • The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle indicates uncertainty about the motion or position of electrons—on a sub-atomic level, the future and the universe is unpredictable
  • Compatibilism is a series of views that accepts the determinist thesis, and try to show that determinism and free will are compatible
  • Soft Determinism accepts determinism is n principle but refuses to accept its harsh conclusion
  • There is never full knowledge of the influences, reasons, or conditions of prior events
  • In theory one can be a determinist, but in practice one can still believe in free will and the personal responsibility that it carries with it.

Chapter 8: Morality and the Good Life

  • Moral Philosophy searches for the best way to live and the right principles for our actions in order to live with clarity and confidence
  • Focus is placed on questions of value rather than truth or reality asking what should we or not do and how should we or not treat other people
  • Morality is a set of principles, or rules, that guide us in our actions
  • The 10 Commandments of the Old Testament and the Commandment to love one another in the New Testament form the core of much of the morality of the western tradition
  • Morality + Search for Good Life=Ethics

Chapter 9: Justice and the Good Society

  • Morality and Society - Aristotle's Ethics—described the ideal citizen
  • Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill—Utilitarianism from the 1830s-1840s-enacted laws and policies that bring about the greatest goodfor the greatest numbers of people
  • Kant-Categorical imperative-to bring about an ideal community
  • Utopia means “nowhere.” as first encountered in Plato's Republic.
  • Social philosophy includes 3 key contrasts or dynamic tensions:
    • Person as a social function ↔ an individual free to define oneself/self-identity
    • Social status/privilege ↔Equality
    • obligations to society ↔ Rights (demanded of/by society)

Who Should Rule?

  • Plutocracy-
  • Meritocracy-
  • Theocracy-
  • Aristocracy-
  • Monarchy-
  • Oligarchy-
  • Democracy-
  • Legitimate power is justified power and authority
  • Tyranny is those who abuse the power that they have
  • Usurpation is taking the place/power that rightfully belongs to another
  • The question to ask is what makes a government legitimate in the eyes of its population today in the western tradition?
  • Anarchism, the Free Market and Justice is a main topic
  • Anarchy is a state of confusion and social disorder with no ruler
  • Free Market entails Laissez-Faire Economics
  • Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations (1776) describes the invisible hand and free market forces
  • Justice—a matter of payback and fairness
  • Retributive Justice is about punishing the criminals, wrongdoers, and wicked
  • Distributive Justice is a fair arrangement of the goods, benefits, and responsibilities of society

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