Philosophy Afrterlife Reformation Essay

The ancient philosophers of Greek and Rome more often than non be remainved the piece to be eternal, meaning, that the world had no beginning, and thus, it corporation never have an end, too. The large repress who had pondered ab protrude the ascendents of behavior here on earth, and well-nigh conduct later on this defer existence ends, have been segregated into numerous sects and categories.For the Stoics 1 our organism undergoes the shifting courses of expansion and condensate in perpetuity from fire the universe expands into cooler and denser forms, contracts a upgrade in pock out to be arrest fire, and so on in an eternal fashion. To the followers of Aristotle, according the indite Leop anile Sulmner in his halt What Students of doctrine Should Know,  this world of ours has always existed and always pull up stakes, and God did non create this world.(90) Yet, rasetide the followers of Aristotle, were dual-lane as far as their opinions went.Jostein Gaard er provides as lots in Sophies earth by indicating that to a select hail of these Aristotelians the world is the like a magnanimous clockwork machine in which after a genuinely long interval on the whole(a) the parts come back to the corresponding positions, and the said(prenominal) sequence of events then(prenominal) happens again, over and over eternally tender beings and their actions argon part of the clockwork, so all(prenominal)thing in hu mankind history has al fail hold ofy happened an infinite number of times already, and forget happen again an infinite number of times in the future. (67)Still in Gaarders Sophies World, we read that the early Christians and their faith in the spiritual Scriptures believed that their, God created the world a comparatively short time ago, exercises continual parsimoniousness in human race history, and will finally end it, perhaps in the non too distant future, and conduct a grand accounting. Life after wipeout will go on for ever, tho feeling on earth takes stick within a fixed and relatively short timeframe, with a beginning, middle, and an end. (72) There is a Christian saint in the person of St. Augustine who, scorned the Stoic concept of the glad life as inadequate, and proclaimed that in the succeeding(prenominal) life true triumph will be comprise. (45)But, according to St. Augustine, they did not regularise much about what it would be like. (46) St. Augustine went on gain ground to write that, it is as if they were content to leave it to God we croup be sure that some(prenominal) is need to make human beings happy will be provided.(57) The Stoics, in the opinion of the say Christian saint, were not much elicit in theorizing about bliss in this life, beca go for not e actuallyone feces achieve it, it is not important to achieve, it is not of much meaning in comparison with the happiness of the next life. (93) In Robert Longmans, Medieval Aristotelians, the occasion write s that the chivalrous Aristotelians, theorized about the happiness of the next life, adapting Aristotles ideas for the purpose the happiness of enlightenment consists of transcendental acquaintance of God himself. (385) Lastly, in St. Augustines suffer City of God, St. Augustine postulates that the elect argon those who ar predestined to happiness in the next life. (990)     The philosopher, Rene Descartes immortalized the philosophical tenet of, I think, in that locationfore, I am. In Dan Kaufmans elysian Simplicity and the Eternal Truths in Descartes, we come to have a ampleer brain about the clear of Descartes regarding the afterlife of man. For Descartes, there is a God who is the composer and man who is the dispassionate and composite. 2 Descartes philosophizes that, mans life, death, and life after death is hooked on the will, idea and sagacity of God. (14) Hence, if this is so, for Rene Descartes, if God is the cause of man, then man depends on God also, even in the matter of mans death. Rene Descartes had studied the genius of man and he had stressed the trulyity behind mans divisibility.We tail end say that if, for Descartes, man is mind and body, pattern and extension, and a somatic being who is believed to be someone who knows that he exists if he is inclined to the process of intellection then, it sens be derived that mans death comes when man ceases to think. The I cannot think, the I does not think, the I as already manpowertioned ceases to think, indeed, the I can no long- blend ining think approximately importantly- and the I can no monthlong declare, Therefore, I am. And so, from this cessation of thought, the status quo of mans existence becomes of this, he does not think, therefore, he is not. (99) In fact, philosophically, the he is no longer, an I.Life after death, we can gain from reading the works of Descartes, would be, according to this philosopher, a secern of being that is entirely interdep endent on Gods will. part no longer has a say in it, for he is no longer capable of thinking.John Hobbess Leviathan bears a duality of characterd characteristics which stamp it with the mark of genius. Leopold Sulmner in his book What Students of Philosophy Should Know discusses the Leviathan, at length, by describing it in this way, In the outset place, it is a work of great inventive power, which shows how the whole fabric of human life and society is built up out of simple elements. And, in the back place, it is stately by a remarkable crystalline consecutiveness, so that there are very few places in which some(prenominal) wishing of coherence can be spy in the thought. (1001) Sulmner writes how it, is true that the fond order, as Hobbes presents it, produces an impression of artificiality but this is hardly an objection, for it was his confer aim to show the artifice by which it had been constructed and the danger which lay in any interference with the mechanism. (10 24)The author goes on further to include that, It is true, also, that the state of spirit and the social contract are fictions passed off as facts but, even to this objection, an answer might be made from within the bounds of his Hobbess theory. It is in his premises, not in his reasoning, that the error lies. If human nature were as selfish and lawless as he represents it, then worship and the political order could arise and parade barely by its restraint, and the alternative would be, as he describes it, between complete peril and infrangible power. But, if his view of man be mistaken, then the whole fabric of his thought crumbles.When we recognize that the individual is neither in truth nor intelligible apart from his social origin and traditions, and that the social factor influences his thought and motives, the show d make(p) between self and separates becomes less fundamental, the acute alternatives of Hobbess thoughts lose their validity and it is doable to regard morals and the state as expressing the ideal and sphere of human activity, and not as simply the chains by which mans unruly passions are kept in check. (1037)For Hobbes, according to Sulmner, for as long as the state of nature endures, life is insecure and wretched. Man cannot emend this state, but he can get out of it therefore, the fundamental law of nature is to coverk peace and follow it and, from this, emerges the second law, that, for the sake of peace, a man should be impulsive to lay down his in effect(p) to all things, when other men are, also, willing to do so. From these two are derived all the laws of nature of the moralists. The laws of nature are unchangeable and eternal. (1048). And so, for Hobbes, life after death, would be the roll in the hay of absolute escape from his present state of life here on earth.Jostein Gaarder provides a chapter in Sophies World on how, John Locke opened a mod way for English philosophy. (261) Locke had patterned his philosophies from those of Francis Bacon, Hobbes, and the other forefathers of modern philosophy. Sophies World presents how, Bacon had do more he had found dangers and defects in the natural working of mens minds, and had devised means to correct them.But Locke went a step further, and undertook a systematic investigation of the human understanding with a view to de bournining something elsenamely, the truth and certainty of knowledge, and the pace of belief, on all matters about which men are in the habit of fashioning assertions. (262) In his manner, Locke introduced a naked system of philosophical enquiry, which is, now known as a theory of knowledge, or epistemology and, in this respect, he was the precursor of Kant and anticipated what Kant called the vituperative method. (279)  Sophies World also provides us with this knowledge of how, we have Lockes own account of the origin of the problem in his mind. He struck out a new way because he found the old paths blocked. Five or se xtette friends were conversing in his room, probably in capital of the United Kingdom and in the winter of 16701, on a subject very remote from this the subject, as we learn from another member of the party, was the principles of morality and revealed religion but difficulties arose on every side, and no progress was made. Then, he goes on to say, it came into my thoughts that we took a wrong course, and that before we set ourselves upon inquires of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and bump into what objects our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with. (262)Again, Leopold Sulmner in his book What Students of Philosophy Should Know writes about Locke, At the request of his friends, Locke agreed to set down his thoughts on this question against their next showdown and he expected that a unity sheet of paper would suffice for the purpose. So little did he realize the order of magnitude of the issues which he raised and which were to occupy his unoccupied for nearly twenty years. (2765)  Sulmner informs by highlighting, Lockes interest centers in the traditional problemsthe nature of self, the world and God, and the grounds of our knowledge of them. We pee these questions only in the fourth and last book of the Essay. But to them the enquiry of the root three books is preliminary, though it has, and Locke saw that it had, an immenseness of its own. His introductory sentences make this plain Since it is the understanding that sets man above the rest of rational beings, and gives him all the advantage and dominion which he has over them it is certainly a subject, even for its nobleness, worth our labor to inquire into.The understanding, like the eye, while it makes us collide with and comprehend all other things, takes no mark off of itself and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance and make it its own object. But whatever be the difficulties that lie in the way of this inquiry whatever it be that kee ps us so much in the dark to ourselves sure I am that all the light we can let in upon our minds, all the experience we can make with our own understandings, will not only be very pleasant, but bring us great advantage, in directing our thoughts in the chase of other things. (2766) What Students of Philosophy Should Know concludes for us that, Locke will not meddle with the sensible consideration of the mind he has no theory about its essence or its relation to the body at the same time, he has no discredit that, if imputable pains be taken, the understanding can be studied like anything else we can observe its objects and the ways in which it operates upon them. totally the objects of the understanding are described as ideas, and ideas are spoken of as being in the mind. Lockes first problem, therefore, is to tactual sensation the origin and history of ideas, and the ways in which the understanding operates upon them, in order that he may be able to see what knowledge is and how far it reaches. (2800)In Sulmners book, we can read that, This wide use of the bourn idea is inherited from Descartes. The term in modern psychology which corresponds with it most nearly is presentation. But presentation is, strictly, only one variety of Lockes idea, which includes, also, deputation and image, percept, and concept or notion. His usage of the term thus differs so widely from the old Platonic meaning that the danger of cloudiness between them is not great.It suited the authors purpose, also, from being a old(prenominal) word in ordinary chat as well as in the language of philosophers. Herein, however, lay a danger from which he did not escape. In commonplace usage idea carries with it a proposal of contrast with reality and the opposition which the new way of ideas excited was due to the doubt which it seemed to cast on the claim of knowledge to be a knowledge of real things.(2817)Perhaps, for Locke, life after death, is something that can be located in mans mind.This is what we can gather from studies of philosophers, throughout history, about life after death 1.) in the next life true happiness will be found, 2.) the happiness of heaven consists of intuitive knowledge of God himself, 3.) a state of being that is entirely dependent on Gods will, 4.) life after death, would be the experience of absolute escape from his present state of life here on earth, and finally, 5.)something that can be located in mans mind.And as for the matter, of which would be true amongst these theories? Well, we shall see which, but in the next life. whole kit CITEDDe Torre, Joseph M. The Humanism of advanced(a) Philosophy,      3d ed. capital of Spain Solaris Press, 1999.Gaarder, Jostein. Sophies World. London capital of Arizona Books, 1996          Reprint, Phoenix Books,1998.Kaufmann, Dan. Divine Simplicity and the Eternal Truths        In Descartes.  British J ournal for the History of Philosophy UK, Vol. ii         Issue 4, 2003.Longman, Robert.  Medieval Aristotelians.           Translated by Thomas Charles. New York       Random stick out Publishing, 1992.Sulmner, Leopold.What Students of Philosophy Should Know. Singapore Allyn and Bacon, 1996.1 De Torre, Joseph M. The Humanism of Modern Philosophy,      3d ed. Madrid Solaris Press, 1999.2 Man in being composedcomposite, has external parts and a soul. He is divisible, according to his parts. And he is created by God, the composer.