PHI 2010
Module 3 Reading Questions
1. Buddhism, and Hinduism are highly popular religion in the eastern side of the world, while Taoism is an ancient Chinese philosophy, based on Lao-Tzu writings. Taoists believe that humanity should follow the Tao and try to be one with nature. Both Hinduism and Buddhism originated near India; Hinduism is filled with many deities, but they all come from Atman. Moreover, Hindus believe in reincarnation; the cycle of reincarnation does not stop unless one reaches enlightenment. On the other hand, Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama; Buddhists do not believe in Gods or God; furthermore, Buddhist follow the four noble truths in order to reach Nirvana, a state of perfect happiness, and no suffering. Similarly to …show more content…
Logical positivism came about around the 1920’s in Vienna; this philosophical movement was characterized by its view that real scientific knowledge can only be obtain through factual knowledge. The logical positivist refuted the idea of metaphysics. Moreover, logical positivist held that the experimentation and confirmation can be the only basis for knowledge, not our personal experience. The natural language theory addresses traditional philosophical problems that are cause by misunderstandings in a language. The natural language theorist were willing to accept metaphysical statements, in order to bring them back to their everyday usage.
6. The Vienna circle played an important role in the expansion of analytic philosophy; many philosophers at the University of Vienna were impressed by the work of Russell and Ludwig. They referred to their philosophy as logical positivism. The group concluded that philosophy is not a theory but a science whose responsible for the logical clarification of thought. Everyone that attended the Vienna circle believed that the object of philosophy is to determine everything through mathematical or scientific reasoning. They reject the concept of metaphysical