Essays on Humanist

Cosimo di Giovanni de Medici was given the title Pater Patriae of Italy at his death and was also known as the primus inter pares. He was the founder of the Medici dynasty, who were during the Renaissance the de facto rulers of Florence. Even though Cosimo Medici was a powerful man, he was not an official ruler. Medici’s government also consisted of a council who would many times resist the laws that Medici put forth. This paper will look at the accomplishments of Cosimo di Medici. Cosimo di Medici was born on the 10th of April, 1389 ...

The Ninth Symphony by Beethoven appears to be one of the most popular and central pieces of art, particularly in the Western Music Industry. The magnificent composition of this piece by Beethoven is basically a symbol indicating the end of all symphonies. It appears that Beethoven’s intention was to reflect, mirror and signify significant values of the then Western society. The Ninth Symphony also creates a feeling of hope and fear for individuals that have a higher level of understanding of such 19th century musical composition. There were various symphonies performed in 1824; most of these performances were ...

When analyzing and comparing two works of art, there are many aspects that one must take into account, especially if they belong to different mediums. Even though there may be many differences, one can still find similarities between two masterpieces. This is more significant if they belong to the same historical and ideological context, as in the case of Sandro Botticelli’s painting “The Birth of Venus” and Agnolo Poliziano's poem “Stanze per la Giostra”. They were both important exponents of the Renaissance’s humanist movement, which sought to recall the importance of man, including the rationality and mythology ...

Abstract

It is well-known fact that people in the US are watched, listened and even recorded against their notice and surely, will. It is also known, that all these undemocratic actions are performed in the name of security. The United States of America is not always related to an advanced technology, high-quality of education and excellent art venues, and Hollywood, sadly, the term “police state” often pop-ups and is being closely affiliated with the America. George J Bush introduced and implemented Patriotic act shortly after September terrorist attacks (2001), however, Barack Obama kept his legacy and Edward Snowdens’ famous leaks ...

Post your Philosophy of Adult Education Inventory (PAEI) scores and associated philosophy. 

I personally scored an 81 in liberal arts adult education, a 99 in behavioral adult education, a 105 in progressive adult education, an 87 in both humanistic adult education, and radical adult education. As a result, my personal educational philosophy is most closely aligned with behavioral and progressive adult education. As a behavioral educator, I should prefer to observe students through clear behaviors. The primary understanding of this philosophy is that "human actions are the result of prior conditioning and the way in which a person's external environment is arranged. Emotions, feelings, intellect and so on are the means ...

Ibsen exposes the life experiences of his main female character Nora to show the way patriarchal societies deprive women their freedom by suppressing their views, treating them like children, and through repressive gender roles. Nora’s life and her relationship with her husband, Torvald, is a typical reflection of the importance of self-determination for women within the marriage institution. It is apparent that when a person’s freedom is limited either by choice or by chance, one is not able to establish a relationship based on equality with a partner or other people within the society. The author provides ...

Introduction

Before the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment, though, the field of inquiry was completely different than it would be afterward. There was only one religious establishment during that time period, and that establishment had the power of eternal fear over everyone and everything. The fact that the Roman Catholic Church had the power to ban someone not just from church but from any chance of salvation radically altered the calculus of anyone interested in pursuing any sort of intellectual endeavor. Remember, this is the same institution that sought to excommunicate Galileo and Copernicus because of their claims that the ...

Introduction

While it is true that the fundamental task herein is to engage perusal of a summary of the book, Mind Siege: The Battle for Truth, the focus involves a summarization of the clash between Secular Humanism and biblical principles of morality played out on the American stage of life. Some would argue that the term ‘worldview’ only has to do with the fields of sociology, the political realm, theology, psychology, ethics, economics, and so on, other hold the position that Secular Humanism is indeed a religion just as much as the classic Christian philosophy is a worldview. Nevertheless, the ...

Introduction

The humanistic view on the development of personality implies that there are aspects of human psychology that could not be explained by psychodynamics and behaviorism alone. Most humanists believe that there is a gap in the psychological understanding of human nature. Psychoanalysts and Behaviorists, for instance, aim to generalize human behavior as predictable and can be empirically determined. Freud, for example, believe that humans acts because of the influence of the unconscious while many behaviorists such as Watson, Pavlov and Skinner believe that human behavior is based on an action-reaction dynamics and is, thereby, observable and measurable. As observed ...

Despite having the trappings of a hard sci-fi adventure story, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is a deeply humanist and spiritual film exploring philosophical and emotional issues in a complex way (Dean, 2015). Central to this are the concepts of bravery and sacrifice: as Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and the rest of his crew take great risks and travel vast distances to save humanity from a dying Earth, the characters all display varying aspects of the human condition, especially related to these very big, complex ideas. As the characters of Interstellar go about their mission and weigh the risks and rewards ...

CONTEXT AND COMPARISON OF

In reaction to the decadence and corruption so pervasive in the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant Reformation sought to introduce an asceticism into the artistic world of its followers. Martin Luther, as well as others who followed him, advocated the destruction of art in churches, particularly images of saints, muted color schemes for the artwork that remained, and an emphasis on images either of Jesus or of contemporary leaders and heroes of the movement. Joseph Koerner’s book The Reformation of the Image (2004) compellingly shows how visual art became indispensable to a religious movement built on words. In a time ...

Following APA Guidelines

Kingdom of Heaven, directed by Ridley Scott, served against its title as an anti-religion humanist piece. The moral of the film was that being human and showing humanity was greater and more powerful than religion. Kingdom of Heaven used a traditional storyline, showing a believing hero, or in this case, a Christian. He is easy to sympathize with and gives the film a religious undertone. However, after Balian, the hero, begins to see the world through the bloodshed of the crusades, he begins to understand that religion is not doing anything good for humankind and rejects is former views for that of the ...

The mind and body problem has originated with Rene Descartes. The function of the mind is to think while the body occupies space. The mind as a thinking matter and the body is the extended matter, respectively. There are two ways between the two distinct types of matter; certainly, the mind affects the body through action and the body affects the mind through perception. In information philosophy, the mind is viewed as immaterial information in the brain, an information processor biologically. For example, the hardware is the brain and mind is the software. It implies that the mind is pure ...

The Renaissance was a fascinating time for intellectuals and thinkers, as humanity began to explore ways to make the perfect society outside of the realm of religion. As scientific knowledge began to advance further and further, writers such as Francis Bacon and Thomas More began to write about how these changes were reflecting the ways in which societies were to be constructed. The notion of a utopia – a perfect society – was created, and More and Bacon penned their own visions of utopias that would have a more humanist, scientific basis in their societal construction, rather than religion. Through the work of Thomas More’ ...

The task of this paper on motivation is designed to describe the two scenarios provided from a motivation standpoint. The first chosen scenario is the one involving the person who bought a new Audi car who sees the word ‘FUSE’ lit up on the dashboard, followed by an annoying beeping sound after which the car dies. Several trips to the dealership in an effort to get the car fixed inspires emotional annoyance and creates inconvenience. The second chosen scenario involves Jill who meets Jack on a roller coaster ride and falls madly in love with him. In the beginning of their acquaintance ...

Growing up in an anti-German society would be difficult for any patriotic American with German heritage. In the prologue to his book, Slapstick, Kurt Vonnegut talked about the fall of his family’s pride in their culture and traditions, and how it left him without a sense of belonging (8). The history of his blood was hushed and dismissed, and he had a blank slate to fill with the skewed histories and realities of his books. His parents raised him in ignorance of all things German, things they had always loved and had always been a part of their lives (Vonnegut 7). ...

During Italian Renaissance the promotion of cultural and artistic patronage responded directly to specific needs of the Court as a new institution. Small regional states emerged from the fragmentation of the communal and feudal regime as a new political subject directly delegated by a higher authority such as the imperator or that the pope. Because of this structural nature of their power, the Italian princes were constantly looking for support, justification and recognition, both inside and especially outside of the boundaries of the territory ruled. In fact, the political activity of a prince would not existed without a specific focus on artistic and ...

How important was Petrarch to the Emergence of Renaissance humanism?

How important was Petrarch to the Emergence of Renaissance humanism? During the Renaissance period, Francesco Petrarch was a famous Italian writer and poet. He took the forefront among many of his contemporaries in the inauguration of the ‘revival of antiquity’, also known as the humanist movement. Humanists were the scholars and writers in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries who aimed to emulate and recover the ancient literature. Their enthusiasm in the classical world and culture shaped the artistic and literary production in Europe. Petrarch had a passion for antiquity, and his works had the immense impact in the ...

Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954): The Components of a Critical Essay on Film Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954): The Components of a Critical Essay on Film The goal of a filmmaker is to make use of narrative to match well with cinema’s natural formalistic techniques. Cinema, as André Bazin has noted has its own ontology of being both an objective representation of reality seeing through the subjective lens of the preserved image. It has a unique way of both representing reality, by preserving life through a representation of life (Bazin 2004, p. 10). Filmmakers not only communicate ...

Humanism is a theory which affirms human responsibility an ability to lead ethical lives, aspiring greater good, without supernaturalism. Humanism is a philosophical theory which focuses on giving the humans the first place in the universe in regards to their faculties and abilities. The theory is concerned with human experiences, their needs and desires. This does not involve a particular set of beliefs and doctrines but an attitude and perspective of human belief systems. Importantly, the theory of humanism focuses on the importance of the supernatural system, which is distinct from the natural world. Therefore, the theory focuses on the system of ...

Organization

Introduction The most appreciated and widely applied parenting programme in the world today is the Parental Effectiveness Training (P.E.T), which was devised by Thomas Gordon, an internationally reputed psychologist. Gordon developed the PET programme while intensively researching on humanist psychology at the University of Chicago, with assistance from Carl Rogers. This programme attained popularity when Gordon published a comprehensive book by the same name in the year 1970, which has been reviewed as under. The book revolves around the idea that every group interaction involves conflicts and differences of perspective that must be resolved in order to sustain the ...

Humanism refers to learning and teaching approach that places emphasis on human values, interest and concerns. It can also be defined as a philosophy of thought that is predominated by human interest. It began in Italy in the fourteenth century and lasted through up to seventieth century. On the other hand, scholasticism refers to middle age teaching and learning approach that relied heavily on the teachings and philosophies of medieval philosophers which include St. Augustine and Aristotle. This approach focused on use of reasoning in finding answers to theological questions and debates. It was grounded on the beliefs that there ...

If religion were never introduced to people, what kind of society could they have? If religion had been absent since time immemorial and if people were exactly the same as animals in the jungle, what lifestyle could they live for? And yet, if people and the rest of the animals on earth had been “nothing but matter” (Dawkins, 3), what sense of life could have been left to them? To consider these conditional statements or these what-if situations, Richard Dawkins might think that humanity itself could be senseless because people lived without a sense of purpose. And if religion were ...

ACTIVITIES: 1) Unit 4 Journaling

a) As we near the end of the book ‘Learning in Adulthood’, I can now look back to reflect on what I’ve learnt so far, especially from Unit 4. While Units 1-3 were centered on adult learning per se, Unit 4 seems to focus more on the process of learning, by exploring various theories associated with it. I’ve read some books on behaviorism from the perspective of genetics, and I’ve always believed that the mind and its reactions are a consequence of evolution. The existence of a relation between learning and changes in behavior, as explained in the ...

The tenets of Confucianism derive themselves from the teachings of Confucius, a Chinese philosopher who lived in the 5th century BCE. It is a very humanist perspective and philosophy, treasuring the mastery of the self above all else. Confucianism is extremely practical; it does not focus on the tenets of gods or goddesses, but rather an emphasis on the family and the worldly things that are important in this world. According to Confucius, it is necessary to master your own actions and understand the way your spirit and mind work, so that you may be in full control over your actions. ...

Retirement

Elizabeth knows that she has had a retirement like the one she dreamed of, but much of that is due to the careful planning and saving that she and her husband did while they were working. Instead of living beyond their means, or up to their means, they put money away throughout their working years, no matter how difficult it seemed at the time. Instead, by living a lifestyle that also enabled them to save money for their retirement has made their golden years much more enjoyable. Now, they see some of their friends that made very different decisions years ago ...

There are many different ways of looking at the world, and philosophical ideas come and go in style just like many other things. Changes in larger philosophical ideas and ideals may happen due to cultural shifts or large incidents; humanity is largely reactionary, and philosophers are no exception to this rule. Today, many thinkers, artists, and writers can be grouped under a humanist classification or a poststructuralist classification when considering their work. Humanism and poststructuralism are not two sides of the same coin, although they are sometimes presented as such; however, when it comes to the meaning of the world ...

Should Euthanasia be permitted for Terminally Ill Patients?

The question about the permission, need and legality of Euthanasia is a long pending one and generates heavy debate with strong reactions from both the sides. Understanding what Euthanasia is of paramount importance before getting into debate and form opinions. In medical terms, Euthanasia is defined as the painless, physician assisted killing for a person suffering from a highly painful and deadly disease (incurable in most cases). There are many angles and aspects to this debate of permitting or legalizing Euthanasia but over the years, Euthanasia for terminally ill patients has gained support not only among the medical and legal lobby but also ...

The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli, 1485. Tempera on canvas. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

At the center of the canvas, standing on a gigantic seashell amidst the sea, is a naked woman. Her head is a bit tilted to the left, her expression serene and calm. On her left, a pair of semi-naked winged figures, a man and a woman, are depicted embraced, their mouths blowing air towards the naked woman in order to help her reach the shore, where another woman awaits to cover her with a robe. The figures are elongated, the necks seem disproportionate and there is a fragile beauty on the faces, all typical characteristics of the art of Botticelli (Tansey and Kleiner, 721). The artist was ...

The New Family Norm

Personality theories A theory can be defined as a theory of reality which helps in understanding, explaining, predicting and controlling that reality. A theory can also be defined as a guide to action. Mostly when we talk about the personality of a person, we are talking about the behavior that makes that person different from others perhaps unique. This feature of personality is referred to as individual differences. As it is evident, some people are neurotic, others are not, and others are more introverted while other people are more extroverted and so on. Erik Erikson and Sigmund Freud are some of ...

Abstract

The essay examines the importance of the architecture of Bramante and evaluates how his architecture represents the attitudes and aesthetics of the High Renaissance. The essay first discusses Bramante’s developing style, through a discussion of the Tempietto and then moves on to discuss his work on the Constantine Basilica in St. Peters. The essay then discusses how his architecture represents the attitudes and aesthetics of the High Renaissance, referring to the work of Vasari, finding that Bramante was the father of the High Renaissance movement in architecture.

Introduction

This essay examines the importance of the architecture of Bramante and evaluates ...

The humanist approach to development puts the individual at the centre as the focal point. Humanistic theories focus on the person’s experiences, needs, desires, preferences, and motives in life. Humanist thinkers strongly claim that an individual person is moulded not by his external environment but by his strong inner will. This essay shall dwell on the salient details about the humanist theory and its implications on classroom teaching, especially in the elementary education levels K to Grade 8.

A Closer Look at Humanism

Humanism thinking emerged in the field of psychology in the 1960s that became a move contradicting the then-dominant behaviourism paradigm. While behaviourism ...

Life Span Development and Personality

Harriet Tubman was a remarkable woman that led the black slaves to freedom during the early and middle part of 1880s through the Underground Railroad. She was born Araminta Hariet Ross, census records cannot determine the correct month of her birth. However, reports indicate that her birth is between February to March of 1822. Tubman was born in an African-American slave family. She is a humanitarian, an abolitionist and a Union spy during the time of the Civil War. Tubman made 13 trips to the South in a mission to rescue more than 70 slaves using networks of anti-slavery groups including safe houses ...

Ancient Athenian Architecture and Sculpture

The term ‘classical humanism’ refers to the philosophical ideas which emerged within ancient Greek and Roman society around the 5th Century B.C. Classical humanism places its emphasis on the importance of man, who, through his ability to think and reason, is at the center of importance. Humans, according to philosophers such as Protagoras, are the source in establishing values and standards – “Man is the measure of all things” – rather than gods. This interest in values and standards led to a fascination with the idea of perfection – mathematics and geometry were studied almost religiously. As a result, the philosophy of humanism expanded ...

Introduction

Euthanasia is the gentle act of inducing death painlessly with the aim of reducing suffering of the patient . Debates for and against euthanasia have been going on since the early 1800’s, and they are still going on to date. Different countries have different takes and laws governing euthanasia . Despite the debates, euthanasia started being performed even before the debates started. It was supported by Seneca the Elder, Plato and Socrates in the ancient days. However, leaders such as Hippocrates were opposed to the idea of euthanasia even on those early days. Additionally, most Christians were also against the ...

Introduction

Over the years, psychology has become an important science, alongside more traditional sciences such as chemistry and physics. According to the American Psychological Association (2011), psychology is: “the study of the mind and behavior. The discipline embraces all aspects of the human experience — from the functions of the brain to the actions of nations, from child development to care for the aged. In every conceivable setting from scientific research centers to mental health care services, "the understanding of behavior" is the enterprise of psychologists” (Support Centre, 2011).

There are various approaches to psychology, namely behavioural, cognitive, humanist, psychoanalytic ...

Introduction

Over the years, psychology has become an important science, alongside more traditional sciences such as chemistry and physics. Psychology is “the study of the mind and behavior. The discipline embraces all aspects of the human experience — from the functions of the brain to the actions of nations, from child development to care for the aged. In every conceivable setting from scientific research centers to mental health care services, "the understanding of behavior" is the enterprise of psychologists” (APA).

There are various approaches to psychology, namely behavioural, cognitive, humanist, psychoanalytic and biological. The approaches vary widely, and have varied in ...