Critique of Pure Reason Essay Example for Free

Critique of Pure Reason Essay Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is the central figure in modern philosophy. He synthesized early modern rationalism and empiricism, set the terms for much of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy, and continues to exercise a significant influence today in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, and other fields. The fundamental idea of Kants â€Å"critical philosophy† — especially in his three Critiques: the Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 1787), the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), and the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790) — is human autonomy. He argues that the human understanding is the source of the general laws of nature that structure all our experience; and that human reason gives itself the moral law, which is our basis for belief in God, freedom, and immortality. Therefore, scientific knowledge, morality, and religious belief are mutually consistent and secure because they all rest on the same foundation of human autonomy, which is also the final end of nature according to the teleological worldview of reflecting judgment that Kant introduces to unify the theoretical and practical parts of his philosophical system. 1. Life and works Immanuel Kant was born April 22, 1724 in Konigsberg, near the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Today Konigsberg has been renamed Kaliningrad and is part of Russia. But during Kants lifetime Konigsberg was the capitol of East Prussia, and its dominant language was German. Though geographically remote from the rest of Prussia and other German cities, Konigsberg was then a major commercial center, an important military port, and a relatively cosmopolitan university town. [1] Kant was born into an artisan family of modest means. His father was a master harness maker, and his mother was the daughter of a harness maker, though she was better educated than most women of her social class. Kants family was never destitute, but his fathers trade was in decline during Kants youth and his parents at times had to rely on extended family for financial support. Kants parents were Pietist and he attended a Pietist school, the Collegium Fridericianum, from ages eight through fifteen. Pietism was an evangelical Lutheran movement that emphasized conversion, reliance on divine grace, the experience of religious emotions, and personal devotion involving regular Bible study, prayer, and introspection. Kant reacted strongly against the forced soul-searching to which he was subjected at the Collegium Fridericianum, in response to which he sought refuge in the Latin classics, which were central to the schools curriculum. Later the mature Kants emphasis on reason and autonomy, rather than emotion and dependence on either authority or grace, may in part reflect his youthful reaction against Pietism. But although the young Kant loathed his Pietist schooling, he had deep respect and admiration for his parents, especially his mother, whose â€Å"genuine religiosity† he described as â€Å"not at all enthusiastic. † According to his biographer, Manfred Kuehn, Kants parents probably influenced him much less through their Pietism than through their artisan values of â€Å"hard work, honesty, cleanliness, and independence,† which they taught him by example. [2] Kant attended college at the University of Konigsberg, known as the Albertina, where his early interest in classics was quickly superseded by philosophy, which all first year students studied and which encompassed mathematics and physics as well as logic, metaphysics, ethics, and natural law. Kants philosophy professors exposed him to the approach of Christian Wolff (1679–1750), whose critical synthesis of the philosophy of G. W. Leibniz (1646–1716) was then very influential in German universities. But Kant was also exposed to a range of German and British critics of Wolff, and there were strong doses of Aristotelianism and Pietism represented in the philosophy faculty as well. Kants favorite teacher was Martin Knutzen (1713–1751), a Pietist who was heavily influenced by both Wolff and the English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704). Knutzen introduced Kant to the work of Isaac Newton (1642–1727), and his influence is visible in Kants first published work, Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces (1747), which was a critical attempt to mediate a dispute in natural philosophy between Leibnizians and Newtonians over the proper measurement of force. After college Kant spent six years as a private tutor to young children outside Konigsberg. By this time both of his parents had died and Kants finances were not yet secure enough for him to pursue an academic career. He finally returned to Konigsberg in 1754 and began teaching at the Albertina the following year. For the next four decades Kant taught philosophy there, until his retirement from teaching in 1796 at the age of seventy-two. Kant had a burst of publishing activity in the years after he returned from working as a private tutor. In 1754 and 1755 he published three scientific works — one of which, Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755), was a major book in which, among other things, he developed what later became known as the nebular hypothesis about the formation of the solar system. Unfortunately, the printer went bankrupt and the book had little immediate impact. To secure qualifications for teaching at the university, Kant also wrote two Latin dissertations: the first, entitled Concise Outline of Some Reflections on Fire (1755), earned him the Magister degree; and the second, New Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition (1755), entitled him to teach as an unsalaried lecturer. The following year he published another Latin work, The Employment in Natural Philosophy of Metaphysics Combined with Geometry, of Which Sample I Contains the Physical Monadology (1756), in hopes of succeeding Knutzen as associate professor of logic and metaphysics, though Kant failed to secure this position. Both the New Elucidation, which was Kants first work concerned mainly with metaphysics, and the Physical Monadology further develop the position on the interaction of finite substances that he first outlined in Living Forces. Both works depart from Leibniz-Wolffian views, though not radically. The New Elucidation in particular shows the influence of Christian August Crusius (1715–1775), a German critic of Wolff. [3] As an unsalaried lecturer at the Albertina Kant was paid directly by the students who attended his lectures, so he needed to teach an enormous amount and to attract many students in order to earn a living. Kant held this position from 1755 to 1770, during which period he would lecture an average of twenty hours per week on logic, metaphysics, and ethics, as well as mathematics, physics, and physical geography. In his lectures Kant used textbooks by Wolffian authors such as Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–1762) and Georg Friedrich Meier (1718–1777), but he followed them loosely and used them to structure his own reflections, which drew on a wide range of ideas of contemporary interest. These ideas often stemmed from British sentimentalist philosophers such as David Hume (1711–1776) and Francis Hutcheson (1694–1747), some of whose texts were translated into German in the mid-1750s; and from the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), who published a flurry of works in the early 1760s. From early in his career Kant was a popular and successful lecturer. He also quickly developed a local reputation as a promising young intellectual and cut a dashing figure in Konigsberg society. After several years of relative quiet, Kant unleashed another burst of publications in 1762–1764, including five philosophical works. The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures (1762) rehearses criticisms of Aristotelian logic that were developed by other German philosophers. The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God (1762–3) is a major book in which Kant drew on his earlier work in Universal History and New Elucidation to develop an original argument for Gods existence as a condition of the internal possibility of all things, while criticizing other arguments for Gods existence. The book attracted several positive and some negative reviews. In 1762 Kant also submitted an essay entitled Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality to a prize competition by the Prussian Royal Academy, though Kants submission took second prize to Moses Mendelssohns winning essay (and was published with it in 1764). Kants Prize Essay, as it is known, departs more significantly from Leibniz-Wolffian views than his earlier work and also contains his first extended discussion of moral philosophy in print. The Prize Essay draws on British sources to criticize German rationalism in two respects: first, drawing on Newton, Kant distinguishes between the methods of mathematics and philosophy; and second, drawing on Hutcheson, he claims that â€Å"an unanalysable feeling of the good† supplies the material content of our moral obligations, which cannot be demonstrated in a purely intellectual way from the formal principle of perfection alone (2:299). [4] These themes reappear in the Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy (1763), whose main thesis, however, is that the real opposition of conflicting forces, as in causal relations, is not reducible to the logical relation of contradiction, as Leibnizians held. In Negative Magnitudes Kant also argues that the morality of an action is a function of the internal forces that motivate one to act, rather than of the external (physical) actions or their consequences. Finally, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime (1764) deals mainly with alleged differences in the tastes of men and women and of people from different cultures. After it was published, Kant filled his own interleaved copy of this book with (often unrelated) handwritten remarks, many of which reflect the deep influence of Rousseau on his thinking about moral philosophy in the mid-1760s. These works helped to secure Kant a broader reputation in Germany, but for the most part they were not strikingly original. Like other German philosophers at the time, Kants early works are generally concerned with using insights from British empiricist authors to reform or broaden the German rationalist tradition without radically undermining its foundations. While some of his early works tend to emphasize rationalist ideas, others have a more empiricist emphasis. During this time Kant was striving to work out an independent position, but before the 1770s his views remained fluid. In 1766 Kant published his first work concerned with the possibility of metaphysics, which later became a central topic of his mature philosophy. Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics, which he wrote soon after publishing a short Essay on Maladies of the Mind (1764), was occasioned by Kants fascination with the Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), who claimed to have insight into a spirit world that enabled him to make a series of apparently miraculous predictions. In this curious work Kant satirically compares Swedenborgs spirit-visions to the belief of rationalist metaphysicians in an immaterial soul that survives death, and he concludes that philosophical knowledge of either is impossible because human reason is limited to experience. The skeptical tone of Dreams is tempered, however, by Kants suggestion that â€Å"moral faith† nevertheless supports belief in an immaterial and immortal soul, even if it is not possible to attain metaphysical knowledge in this domain (2:373). In 1770, at the age of forty-six, Kant was appointed to the chair in logic and metaphysics at the Albertina, after teaching for fifteen years as an unsalaried lecturer and working since 1766 as a sublibrarian to supplement his income. Kant was turned down for the same position in 1758. But later, as his reputation grew, he declined chairs in philosophy at Erlangen (1769) and Jena (1770) in hopes of obtaining one in Konigsberg. After Kant was finally promoted, he gradually extended his repertoire of lectures to include anthropology (Kants was the first such course in Germany and became very popular), rational theology, pedagogy, natural right, and even mineralogy and military fortifications. In order to inaugurate his new position, Kant also wrote one more Latin dissertation: Concerning the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World (1770), which is known as the Inaugural Dissertation. The Inaugural Dissertation departs more radically from both Wolffian rationalism and British sentimentalism than Kants earlier work. Inspired by Crusius and the Swiss natural philosopher Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777), Kant distinguishes between two fundamental powers of cognition, sensibility and understanding (intelligence), where the Leibniz-Wolffians regarded understanding (intellect) as the only fundamental power. Kant therefore rejects the rationalist view that sensibility is only a confused species of intellectual cognition, and he replaces this with his own view that sensibility is distinct from understanding and brings to perception its own subjective forms of space and time — a view that developed out of Kants earlier criticism of Leibnizs relational view of space in Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space (1768). Moreover, as the title of the Inaugural Dissertation indicates, Kant argues that sensibility and understanding are directed at two different worlds: sensibility gives us access to the sensible world, while understanding enables us to grasp a distinct intelligible world. These two worlds are related in that what the understanding grasps in the intelligible world is the â€Å"paradigm† of â€Å"NOUMENAL PERFECTION,† which is â€Å"a common measure for all other things in so far as they are realities. † Considered theoretically, this intelligible paradigm of perfection is God; considered practically, it is â€Å"MORAL PERFECTION† (2:396). The Inaugural Dissertation thus develops a form of Platonism; and it rejects the view of British sentimentalists that moral judgments are based on feelings of pleasure or pain, since Kant now holds that moral judgments are based on pure understanding alone. After 1770 Kant never surrendered the views that sensibility and understanding are distinct powers of cognition, that space and time are subjective forms of human sensibility, and that moral judgments are based on pure understanding (or reason) alone. But his embrace of Platonism in the Inaugural Dissertation was short-lived. He soon denied that our understanding is capable of insight into an intelligible world, which cleared the path toward his mature position in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), according to which the understanding (like sensibility) supplies forms that structure our experience of the sensible world, to which human knowledge is limited, while the intelligible (or noumenal) world is strictly unknowable to us. Kant spent a decade working on the Critique of Pure Reason and published nothing else of significance between 1770 and 1781. But its publication marked the beginning of another burst of activity that produced Kants most important and enduring works. Because early reviews of the Critique of Pure Reason were few and (in Kants judgment) uncomprehending, he tried to clarify its main points in the much shorter Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as a Science (1783). Among the major books that rapidly followed are the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Kants main work on the fundamental principle of morality; the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786), his main work on natural philosophy in what scholars call his critical period (1781–1798); the second and substantially revised edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1787); the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), a fuller discussion of topics in moral philosophy that builds on (and in some ways revises) the Groundwork; and the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790), which deals with aesthetics and teleology. Kant also published a number of important essays in this period, including Idea for a Universal History With a Cosmopolitan Aim (1784) and Conjectural Beginning of Human History (1786), his main contributions to the philosophy of history; An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784), which broaches some of the key ideas of his later political essays; and What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking? (1786), Kants intervention in the pantheism controversy that raged in German intellectual circles after F. H. Jacobi (1743–1819) accused the recently deceased G. E. Lessing (1729–1781) of Spinozism. With these works Kant secured international fame and came to dominate German philosophy in the late 1780s. But in 1790 he announced that the Critique of the Power of Judgment brought his critical enterprise to an end (5:170). By then K. L. Reinhold (1758–1823), whose Letters on the Kantian Philosophy (1786) popularized Kants moral and religious ideas, had been installed (in 1787) in a chair devoted to Kantian philosophy at Jena, which was more centrally located than Konigsberg and rapidly developing into the focal point of the next phase in German intellectual history. Reinhold soon began to criticize and move away from Kants views. In 1794 his chair at Jena passed to J. G. Fichte, who had visited the master in Konigsberg and whose first book, Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (1792), was published anonymously and initially mistaken for a work by Kant himself. This catapulted Fichte to fame, but he too soon moved away from Kant and developed an original position quite at odds with Kants, which Kant finally repudiated publicly in 1799 (12:370–371). Yet while German philosophy moved on to assess and respond to Kants legacy, Kant himself continued publishing important works in the 1790s. Among these are Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793), which drew a censure from the Prussian King when Kant published the book after its second essay was rejected by the censor; The Conflict of the Faculties (1798), a collection of essays inspired by Kants troubles with the censor and dealing with the relationship between the philosophical and theological faculties of the university; On the Common Saying: That May be Correct in Theory, But it is of No Use in Practice (1793), Toward Perpetual Peace (1795), and the Doctrine of Right, the first part of the Metaphysics of Morals (1797), Kants main works in political philosophy; the Doctrine of Virtue, the second part of the Metaphysics of Morals (1797), a catalogue of duties that Kant had been planning for more than thirty years; and Anthropology From a Pragmatic Point of View (1798), based on Kants anthropology lectures. Several other compilations of Kants lecture notes from other courses were published later, but these were not prepared by Kant himself. Kant retired from teaching in 1796. For nearly two decades he had lived a highly disciplined life focused primarily on completing his philosophical system, which began to take definite shape in his mind only in middle age. After retiring he came to believe that there was a gap in this system separating the metaphysical foundations of natural science from physics itself, and he set out to close this gap in a series of notes that postulate the existence of an ether or caloric matter. These notes, known as the Opus Postumum, remained unfinished and unpublished in Kants lifetime, and scholars disagree on their significance and relation to his earlier work. It is clear, however, that these late notes show unmistakable signs of Kants mental decline, which became tragically precipitous around 1800. Kant died February 12, 1804, just short of his eightieth birthday. 2. Kants project in the Critique of Pure Reason. The main topic of the Critique of Pure Reason is the possibility of metaphysics, understood in a specific way. Kant defines metaphysics in terms of â€Å"the cognitions after which reason might strive independently of all experience,† and his goal in the book is to reach a â€Å"decision about the possibility or impossibility of a metaphysics in general, and the determination of its sources, as well as its extent and boundaries, all, however, from principles† (Axii. See also Bxiv; and 4:255–257). Thus metaphysics for Kant concerns a priori knowledge, or knowledge whose justification does not depend on experience; and he associates a priori knowledge with reason. The project of the Critique is to examine whether, how, and to what extent human reason is capable of a priori knowledge. 2. 1 The crisis of the Enlightenment To understand the project of the Critique better, let us consider the historical and intellectual context in which it was written. [5] Kant wrote the Critique toward the end of the Enlightenment, which was then in a state of crisis. Hindsight enables us to see that the 1780’s was a transitional decade in which the cultural balance shifted decisively away from the Enlightenment toward Romanticism, but of course Kant did not have the benefit of such hindsight. The Enlightenment was a reaction to the rise and successes of modern science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The spectacular achievement of Newton in particular engendered widespread confidence and optimism about the power of human reason to control nature and to improve human life. One effect of this new confidence in reason was that traditional authorities were increasingly questioned. For why should we need political or religious authorities to tell us how to live or what to believe, if each of us has the capacity to figure these things out for ourselves? Kant expresses this Enlightenment commitment to the sovereignty of reason in the Critique: Our age is the age of criticism, to which everything must submit. Religion through its holiness and legislation through its majesty commonly seek to exempt themselves from it. But in this way they excite a just suspicion against themselves, and cannot lay claim to that unfeigned respect that reason grants only to that which has been able to withstand its free and public examination (Axi). Enlightenment is about thinking for oneself rather than letting others think for you, according to What is Enlightenment? (8:35). In this essay, Kant also expresses the Enlightenment faith in the inevitability of progress. A few independent thinkers will gradually inspire a broader cultural movement, which ultimately will lead to greater freedom of action and governmental reform. A culture of enlightenment is â€Å"almost inevitable† if only there is â€Å"freedom to make public use of ones reason in all matters† (8:36). The problem is that to some it seemed unclear whether progress would in fact ensue if reason enjoyed full sovereignty over traditional authorities; or whether unaided reasoning would instead lead straight to materialism, fatalism, atheism, skepticism (Bxxxiv), or even libertinism and authoritarianism (8:146). The Enlightenment commitment to the sovereignty of reason was tied to the expectation that it would not lead to any of these consequences but instead would support certain key beliefs that tradition had always sanctioned. Crucially, these included belief in God, the soul, freedom, and the compatibility of science with morality and religion. Although a few intellectuals rejected some or all of these beliefs, the general spirit of the Enlightenment was not so radical. The Enlightenment was about replacing traditional authorities with the authority of individual human reason, but it was not about overturning traditional moral and religious beliefs. Yet the original inspiration for the Enlightenment was the new physics, which was mechanistic. If nature is entirely governed by mechanistic, causal laws, then it may seem that there is no room for freedom, a soul, or anything but matter in motion. This threatened the traditional view that morality requires freedom. We must be free in order to choose what is right over what is wrong, because otherwise we cannot be held responsible. It also threatened the traditional religious belief in a soul that can survive death or be resurrected in an afterlife. So modern science, the pride of the Enlightenment, the source of its optimism about the powers of human reason, threatened to undermine traditional moral and religious beliefs that free rational thought was expected to support. This was the main intellectual crisis of the Enlightenment. The Critique of Pure Reason is Kants response to this crisis. Its main topic is metaphysics because, for Kant, metaphysics is the domain of reason – it is â€Å"the inventory of all we possess through pure reason, ordered systematically† (Axx) — and the authority of reason was in question. Kants main goal is to show that a critique of reason by reason itself, unaided and unrestrained by traditional authorities, establishes a secure and consistent basis for both Newtonian science and traditional morality and religion. In other words, free rational inquiry adequately supports all of these essential human interests and shows them to be mutually consistent. So reason deserves the sovereignty attributed to it by the Enlightenment. 2. 2 Kants Copernican revolution in philosophy To see how Kant attempts to achieve this goal in the Critique, it helps to reflect on his grounds for rejecting the Platonism of the Inaugural Dissertation. In a way the Inaugural Dissertation also tries to reconcile Newtonian science with traditional morality and religion, but its strategy is different from that of the Critique. According to the Inaugural Dissertation, Newtonian science is true of the sensible world, to which sensibility gives us access; and the understanding grasps principles of divine and moral perfection in a distinct intelligible world, which are paradigms for measuring everything in the sensible world. So on this view our knowledge of the intelligible world is a priori because it does not depend on sensibility, and this a priori knowledge furnishes principles for judging the sensible world because in some way the sensible world itself conforms to or imitates the intelligible world. Soon after writing the Inaugural Dissertation, however, Kant expressed doubts about this view. As he explained in a February 21, 1772 letter to his friend and former student, Marcus Herz: In my dissertation I was content to explain the nature of intellectual representations in a merely negative way, namely, to state that they were not modifications of the soul brought about by the object. However, I silently passed over the further question of how a representation that refers to an object without being in any way affected by it can be possible†¦. [B]y what means are these [intellectual representations] given to us, if not by the way in which they affect us? And if such intellectual representations depend on our inner activity, whence comes the agreement that they are supposed to have with objects — objects that are nevertheless not possibly produced thereby? †¦[A]s to how my understanding may form for itself concepts of things completely a priori, with which concepts the things must necessarily agree, and as to how my understanding may formulate real principles concerning the possibility of such concepts, with which principles experience must be in exact agreement and which nevertheless are independent of experience — this question, of how the faculty of understanding achieves this conformity with the things themselves, is still left in a state of obscurity. (10:130–131) Here Kant entertains doubts about how a priori knowledge of an intelligible world would be possible. The position of the Inaugural Dissertation is that the intelligible world is independent of the human understanding and of the sensible world, both of which (in different ways) conform to the intelligible world. But, leaving aside questions about what it means for the sensible world to conform to an intelligible world, how is it possible for the human understanding to conform to or grasp an intelligible world? If the intelligible world is independent of our understanding, then it seems that we could grasp it only if we are passively affected by it in some way. But for Kant sensibility is our passive or receptive capacity to be affected by objects that are independent of us (2:392, A51/B75). So the only way we could grasp an intelligible world that is independent of us is through sensibility, which means that our knowledge of it could not be a priori. The pure understanding alone could at best enable us to form representations of an intelligible world. But since these intellectual representations would entirely â€Å"depend on our inner activity,† as Kant says to Herz, we have no good reason to believe that they conform to an independent intelligible world. Such a priori intellectual representations could well be figments of the brain that do not correspond to anything independent of the human mind. In any case, it is completely mysterious how there might come to be a correspondence between purely intellectual representations and an independent intelligible world. Kants strategy in the Critique is similar to that of the Inaugural Dissertation in that both works attempt to reconcile modern science with traditional morality and religion by relegating them to distinct sensible and intelligible worlds, respectively. But the Critique gives a far more modest and yet revolutionary account of a priori knowledge. As Kants letter to Herz suggests, the main problem with his view in the Inaugural Dissertation is that it tries to explain the possibility of a priori knowledge about a world that is entirely independent of the human mind. This turned out to be a dead end, and Kant never again maintained that we can have a priori knowledge about an intelligible world precisely because such a world would be entirely independent of us. However, Kants revolutionary position in the Critique is that we can have a priori knowledge about the general structure of the sensible world because it is not entirely independent of the human mind. The sensible world, or the world of appearances, is constructed by the human mind from a combination of sensory matter that we receive passively and a priori forms that are supplied by our cognitive faculties. We can have a priori knowledge only about aspects of the sensible world that reflect the a priori forms supplied by our cognitive faculties. In Kants words, â€Å"we can cognize of things a priori only what we ourselves have put into them† (Bxviii). So according to the Critique, a priori knowledge is possible only if and to the extent that the sensible world itself depends on the way the human mind structures its experience. Kant characterizes this new constructivist view of experience in the Critique through an analogy with the revolution wrought by Copernicus in astronomy: Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the objects; but all attempts to find out something about them a priori through concepts that would extend our cognition have, on this presupposition, come to nothing. Hence let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition, which would agree better with the requested possibility of an a priori cognition of them, which is to establish something about objects before they are given to us. This would be just like the first thoughts of Copernicus, who, when he did not make good progress in the explanation of the celestial motions if he assumed that the entire celestial host revolves around the observer, tried to see if he might not have greater success if he made the observer revolve and left the stars at rest. Now in metaphysics we can try in a similar way regarding the intuition of objects. If intuition has to conform to the constitution of the objects, then I do not see how we can know anything of them a priori; but if the object (as an object of the senses) conforms to the constitution of our faculty of intuition, then I can very well represent this possibility to myself. Yet because I cannot stop with these intuitions, if they are to become cognitions, but must refer them as representations to something as their object and determine this object through them, I can assume either that the concepts through which I bring about this determination also con.

The Algerian Civil War 1992-2002 :: essays research papers fc

â€Å"Thus, what motivates men to slay the enemy is anger,† Sun Tzu says in The Art of War. The conflict between Algerian Islamic fundamentalists and the Algerian military backed government is rooted in anger. The conflict, which began as skirmishes between government forces and Islamic fundamentalists, has taken on the proportions of a civil war as fundamentalists carried out kidnappings, assassinations and other forms of civil disturbance. The government has tried pacifying the Muslims by including Islamic leaders in the government, but extreme violence committed by both parties in the conflict has made a peaceful solution difficult to achieve. This violence has claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 people in the years between 1990 and 2002. The Roots of Anger The clash between the fundamentalists and the military government stems from Algeria’s experimentation with political liberalization. The attempt to create more points of view and more political parties in the government has backfired horrendously. The violence of modern day Algeria stems from the failure of mild democratization in the North African country. Following nomination by the National Liberation Front (FLN) party, Chadli Bendjedid was elected President in 1979 and re-elected in 1984 and 1988. The National Liberation Front ruled as a virtual one-party regime until the political system was reformed in 1989. Antigovernment sentiment stemming from corruption, housing shortages, unemployment, and other severe economic and social problems boosted the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) despite the party’s quite public commitment to theocratic rule under Islamic law. This seemingly innocuous act was actually quite revolutionary. For the first time, an Arab country had authorized the creation of a political party that had made the creation of an Islamic republic its main goal . A new constitution was adopted in 1989 that allowed the formation of political parties other than the FLN. It also removed the armed forces, which had run the government since the days of the 1980s, from a designated role in the operation of the government. Between 1989 and 1990, forty-four new political parties emerged, many with distinct social agendas. These agendas included human rights, independent women organizations and other cultural movements . Among the scores of parties that sprang up under the new constitution, the militant Islamic Salvation Front was the most successful, winning more than 50% of all votes cast in elections in 1990 as well as in the first stage of national elections held in December 1991.

Cell phones How have they changed us socially? Essay

Filed under Fall 2013, Story Cycle 4, Features, Opinion, Showcase The short URL of the present article is: http://lhslance.org/bKUbA We live in a world where communication through modern technology is almost required. Everywhere people are texting, emailing, writing blogs and tweeting. It’s hard to go anywhere without seeing someone using a phone or the Internet to connect with others. Can you imagine not being able to check your Twitter, Facebook or messages for a week? We would feel lost. Of course the use of technology can be good. It provides us with faster, more efficient ways to communicate with others, but it can also harm our ability to communicate with people face to face. Many complain that our new digital skills impact our ability to write properly. We look old fashioned on paper. â€Å"i nede to ask a?† Read our ad policy â€Å"Cell phones have changed communication because now, instead of friends actually having a face to face conversation, they text each other. This is bad because intent become misinterpreted, which can lead to ‘drama’ and friendship problems. The use of cell phones has affected me because whenever I am in a situation, instead of trying to make a conversation I resort to my cell phone,† Junior Taylor Strahan said. How the message is sent can determine many additional factors as to how the message is interpreted by the receiver. All new information we learn is compared with the knowledge we already have. If it confirms what we already know, we will likely receive the new information accurately, though we may pay little attention to it. If it disputes our previous assumptions or interpretation of the situation, we may distort it in our mind so that it is made to fit our world view, or we may dismiss the information as deceptive, misguided, or simply wrong. For example, if two people are involved in an escalated conflict, and they each assume that the other is going to be aggressive and hostile, then any  ambiguous message will be interpreted as aggressive and hostile, even if it was not intended to be that way at all. Our expectations work as blinders or filters that distort what we see so that it fits our preconceived images of the world. According to pewinternet.org, â€Å"a bit more than a third (37%) of social network-using teens said they sent messages to friends every day through the social sites, a drop from the 42% of such teens who said they did so in February of 2008†. Face- to -face communication among children and teenagers is being squashed out by social networks. A phone call isn’t used to get in touch with someone anymore; Facebook and Twitter are the main tools of communication. The consequences of this are social awkwardness and even social anxiety when confronted with new people to meet in person. A study was done by pewinternet.org among teenagers on social networks, and the amount of communication among teenagers on social networks, and the amount of communication by social network has remained steady. Studies show that homework is interrupted and children become distracted when they receive notifications of a new chat messages, texts, or emails. â€Å"Good communication is important because when we are adults and applying for interviews, we won’t know how to have proper communication, which can result in not getting the job. Another thing is kids are so focused on social networking on our phones that we spend less time on school work which causes bad grades. In the future when applying for college, they won’t accept us because we have bad grades and that is due to cell phone use,† Strahan added. 7 Texting has, in many ways, made communication easier by helping people avoid long, unpleasant phone conversations and making a quick â€Å"Hello† much easier. According to the Pew Research Center, 72% of teenagers text regularly, and one in three sends more than 100 texts per day. Clearly, texting is the preferred method of communication among young people, and that trend is moving upward toward adults, who are also texting much more frequently. Studies have shown that it makes it difficult for students who rely so heavily on technology to actually communicate to adults in person because they don’t quite develop all of the necessary skills to hold or even start a face-to-face conversation. However, these skills are a crucial tool in the workforce. If you want a high paying, stable job, or possibly even to be admitted to a university, you must have good face-to-face communication skills. If you lack these specific skills you most likely won’t even make it  throu gh the interview. â€Å"Teens are in the stage of their life where they’re learning so if you don’t learn to have good communication skills, then when you become an adult you will have a harder time asking for help, being proactive with things in your life,† said reading specialist Mrs. Tracey Cassidy. Students who are constantly texting with abbreviated forms of words have begun to speak with the same acronyms. The now everyday uses of â€Å"LOL† and â€Å"OMG† have become substitutions for actual emotional responses in conversations. This form of talking is often seen as flighty and uneducated. They’re not only speaking in abbreviated ways but they are also beginning to become distracted during conversations. While texting, it is easy to jump from topic to topic when an idea comes to mind. However, this is causing many students to become unfocused and sidetracked during face to face conversations. â€Å"I think that some cell phones have opened up communication for teens 100% because that’s how they communicate with their friends, parents, with their school work. I think it’s fantastic, and that’s what they really rely on, so it is good but some negatives are their communication skills are not as strong as they should be, like talking to other people,† Cassidy added. â€Å"When I was a teen we did not have cell phones or computers. I had a telephone in my room (which was a big deal) it was attached to the wall with a long cord and was then attached to a base so I couldn’t walk around the house and talk on the phone. I had to say in my room for privacy. Before I got my own phone I would use the phone in the kitchen, I would stretch the phone cord as far as I could and then go into a closet for privacy,† parent Barbara Dempster said. â€Å"Communication is a way for people to connect with each other and form relationship. It is also a way to gather information from others. I like the variety of ways that people can communicate and keep in touch with one another. I do feel that the importance of face- to- face communication has been impacted by the use of cell phone and texting vs. talking on the phone,† Dempster added. We have become a society that is completely dependent on our technology to communicate with others. It’ s almost impossible for us to maintain our social life without using some sort of modern-day technology to communicate. â€Å"In terms of communication, it is harder for teens to communicate face to  face with people with maybe teachers, because they’re so used to doing it via email. Sometimes it’s good, meaning if you don’t like a grade you have, you can email the teacher saying you have concerns about your grade. Where if you don’t have an email, you have to talk to your teacher about the grade you don’t like and you might be nervous and uncomfortable because it’s your teacher,† Cassidy said. â€Å"I would tell teens that there is a time and place for texting and there is a time when you need to have a conversation either face to face or over the telephone,† said Dempster. â€Å"Texting is great when you need to find out information quickly – Are you still coming over? Do you want a soda? Where are you?† Dempster believes other situations require face- to -face like, â€Å"When you are joking and it may be difficult for the oth er person to sense your humor or sarcasm, communication with a teacher or adult. When telling your parents you did something wrong,† Dempster said. According to Pew Research Center, â€Å"As technology continues to improve, the use of cell phones continues to change drastically. The increase over the last ten years has been incredible and the way we use our phones to stay connected and informed continues to change.† â€Å"The average American smartphone user spent nearly 30 minutes a day checking or updating social networks. The way we use cell phones has changed drastically over the last year. Once upon a time, we used cell phones to make calls while we were away from our homes. Recent studies show that we may be migrating away from our primary use of the phone to more of a texting and mobile web device.† Research from www.accuconference.com states that in 2012 †¢53% of adults own a smartphone. †¢42% of people have used their phone for entertainment when they are bored. †¢51% of users used their cell phone at least once to get information. †¢27% said they had trouble doing something because they did not have their phone. †¢29% turn off their phones to take a break from their digital life at night. This article is not to say that mobile phones should be banned due to their many negative aspects. It depends upon us whether we use this technology for our progress and prosperity or for our destruction. No doubt, mobile phone is the best innovation of this era but people should use it in a positive sense.

Essay on The Roots of Bilingual Education - 1129 Words

The Roots of Bilingual Education A historical perspective on bilingual education is written in the article Bilingual Education Traces its U.S. Roots to the Colonial Era in the magazine Education Week. The author begins by writing, Bilingual education has been part of the immigrant experience in America since the Colonial periods, when native-language schooling was the rule rather than the exception (21). When immigrant groups settled in the United States they taught their children in their own languages, despite some attempts to impose English instruction. Many do not believe it but bilingual education was started before 1800 when German, French, Scandanavian, Polish, Dutch and Italian schools were established. From 1839 to†¦show more content†¦In 1930’s English as a second language method was created to teach foreign diplomats and university students but then it was extended to minority children. Students were removed from regular sink or swim classrooms typically for 45 minutes a day, two t o five times a week for compensatory instruction. It was not until 1963 when the bilingual schooling was reborn with the creation of the bilingual programs in Dade County, Florida by the Cubans who fled to Miami after the Cuban revolution in 1959. Bilingual education is a comprehensive educational approach that involves more than just learning English skills. Children are taught all the areas first in their native language. Oral expressions and reading are developed in native language courses and English is taught formally in English as a Second Language classes. Once the children have learned to speak English, they are taught to read it. Instruction through English in cognitive areas begins when the child can function in that language and experiences no academic handicap due to insufficient knowledge of the language. In Hartford as the population of Puerto Ricans increased so did the need for the advancement of Puerto Ricans. Ethnic politics became important in the advancement of Puerto Ricans in Hartford from 1950 to present day. Jose Cruz in the book Identity and Power writes, Others saw clearly that politics was a means to advance a Puerto Rican agenda thatShow MoreRelatedThe Importance Of Learning A Second Language Essay973 Words   |  4 PagesHello. Nin Hao. Hallo. Ðâ€"Ð ´Ã'€Ð °Ã ²Ã µÃ ¹Ã'‚Ð µ. The art of language is intricate and useful in many aspects of life. The Encyclopedia of Education states â€Å"†¦between 60-75% of the world is bilingual.† When it comes to bilingual education most countries require students to learn their home language and English. The United States only requires two years of foreign language to graduate. This is due to the English language being considered as the universal language. 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