Western philosophy Essay Example for Free

Western philosophy Essay Philosophy is the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic). The word is of Ancient Greek origin (philosophia), meaning love of wisdom. Definition of philosophy: Every definition of philosophy is controversial. The field has historically expanded and changed depending upon what kinds of questions were interesting or relevant in a given era. It is generally agreed that philosophy is a method, rather than a set of claims, propositions, or theories. Its investigations are based upon rational thinking, striving to make no unexamined assumptions and no leaps based on faith or pure analogy. Different philosophers have had varied ideas about the nature of reason. There is also disagreement about the subject matter of philosophy. Some think that philosophy examines the process of inquiry itself. Others, that there are essentially philosophical propositions which it is the task of philosophy to answer. Although the word philosophy originates in Ancient Greece, many figures in the history of other cultures have addressed similar topics in similar ways. The philosophers of East and South Asia are discussed in Eastern philosophy, while the philosophers of North Africa and the Middle East, because of their strong interactions with Europe, are usually considered part of Western philosophy. Branches of philosophy: The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as to seem not worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. To give an exhaustive list of the main divisions of philosophy is difficult, because various topics have been studied by philosophers at various times. Ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and logic are usually included. Other topics include politics, aesthetics, and religion. In addition, most academic subjects have a philosophy, for example the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mathematics, and the philosophy of history. Metaphysics was first studied systematically by Aristotle. He did not use that term; the term emerged because in later editions of Aristotles works the book on what is now called metaphysics came after Aristotles study of physics. He calls the subject first philosophy (or sometimes just wisdom), and says it is the subject that deals with first causes and the principles of things. The modern meaning of the term is any inquiry dealing with the ultimate nature of what exists. Epistemology is concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge, and whether knowledge is possible. Ethics, or moral philosophy, is concerned with questions of how agents ought to act. Platos early dialogues constitute a search for definitions of virtue. Metaethics is the study of whether ethical value judgments can be objective at all. Ethics can also be conducted within a religious context. Logic has two broad divisions: mathematical logic (formal symbolic logic) and what is now called philosophical logic, the logic of language. Greek philosophy and Hellenistic philosophy: Ancient Greek philosophy may be divided into the pre-Socratic period, the Socratic period, and the post-Aristotelian period (or Hellenistic period). The pre-Socratic period was characterized by metaphysical speculation, often preserved in the form of grand, sweeping statements, such as All is fire or All changes. Important pre-Socratic philosophers include Pythagoras, Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Democritus, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Empedocles. The Socratic period is named in honor of Socrates, who, along with his pupil Plato, revolutionized philosophy through the use of the Socratic method, which developed the very general philosophical methods of definition, analysis, and synthesis. While no writings of Socrates survive, his influence as a skeptic is transmitted through Platos works. Platos writings are often considered basic texts in philosophy as they defined the fundamental issues of philosophy for future generations. These issues and others were taken up by Aristotle, who studied at Platos school, the Academy, and who often disagreed with what Plato had written. The subsequent period ushered in such philosophers as Euclid, Epicurus, Chrysippus, Hipparchia the Cynic, Pyrrho, and Sextus Empiricus. Though many of these philosophers may seem irrelevant given current scientific knowledge, their systems of thought continue to influence both philosophy and science today. Medieval philosophy History: Medieval philosophy is the philosophy of Western Europe and the Middle East during what is now known as the medieval era or the Middle Ages, roughly extending from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance period. Medieval philosophy is defined partly by the rediscovery and further development of classical Greek philosophy and Hellenistic philosophy, and partly by the need to address theological problems and to integrate sacred doctrine (in Islam, Judaism and Christianity) and secular learning. Some problems discussed throughout this period are the relation of faith to reason, the existence and unity of God, the object of theology and metaphysics, the problems of knowledge, of universals, and of individuation. Philosophers from the Middle Ages include the Muslim philosophers Alkindus, Alfarabi, Alhacen, Avicenna, Algazel, Avempace, Abubacer and Averroes; the Jewish philosophers Maimonides and Gersonides; and the Christian philosophers Anselm, Peter Abelard, Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham and Jean Buridan. Early modern philosophy History(c. 1600 c. 1800): Modern philosophy is usually considered to begin with the revival of skepticism and the genesis of modern physical science. Canonical figures include Montaigne, Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Chronologically, this era spans the 17th and 18th centuries, and is generally considered to end with Kants systematic attempt to reconcile Newtonian physics with traditional metaphysical topics. Later modern philosophy History(c. 1800 c. 1960): Later modern philosophy is usually considered to begin after the philosophy of Immanuel Kant at the beginning of the 19th-century. German idealists, Fichte, Hegel, Hoelderlin, Schelling, expanded on the work of Kant by maintaining that the world is rational and it is knowable as rational. Rejecting idealism, other philosophers, many working from outside the university, initiated lines of thought that would occupy academic philosophy in the early and mid-20th century: Contemporary philosophy History(c. 1960 present): In the last hundred years, philosophy has increasingly become an activity practiced within the modern research university, and accordingly it has grown more specialized and more distinct from the natural sciences. Much of philosophy in this period concerns itself with explaining the relation between the theories of the natural sciences and the ideas of the humanities or common sense. It is arguable that later modern philosophy ended with contemporary philosophys shift of focus from 19th century philosophers to 20th century philosophers. Realism and nominalism in Philosophy: Realism sometimes means the position opposed to the 18th-century Idealism, namely that some things have real existence outside the mind. Classically, however, realism is the doctrine that abstract entities corresponding to universal terms like man have a real existence. It is opposed to nominalism, the view that abstract or universal terms are words only, or denote mental states such as ideas, beliefs, or intentions. The latter position, famously held by William of Ockham, is conceptualism. Rationalism and empiricism in Philosophy: Rationalism is any view emphasizing the role or importance of human reason. Extreme rationalism tries to base all knowledge on reason alone. Rationalism typically starts from premises that cannot coherently be denied, then attempts by logical steps to deduce every possible object of knowledge. The first rationalist, in this broad sense, is often held to be Parmenides (fl. 480 BCE), who argued that it is impossible to doubt that thinking actually occurs. But thinking must have an object, therefore something beyond thinking really exists. Parmenides deduced that what really exists must have certain properties for example, that it cannot come into existence or cease to exist, that it is a coherent whole, that it remains the same eternally (in fact, exists altogether outside time). Zeno of Elea (born c. 489 BCE) was a disciple of Parmenides, and argued that motion is impossible, since the assertion that it exists implies a contradiction. Plato (427-347 BCE) was also influenced by Parmenides, but combined rationalism with a form of realism. The philosophers work is to consider being, and the essence of things. But the characteristic of essences is that they are universal. The nature of a man, a triangle, a tree, applies to all men, all triangles, all trees. Plato argued that these essences are mind-independent forms, that humans (but particularly philosophers) can come to know by reason, and by ignoring the distractions of sense-perception. Modern rationalism begins with Descartes. Reflection on the nature of perceptual experience, as well as scientific discoveries in physiology and optics, led Descartes (and also Locke) to the view that we are directly aware of ideas, rather than objects. This view gave rise to three questions: Is an idea a true copy of the real thing that it represents? Sensation is not a direct interaction between bodily objects and our sense, but is a physiological process involving representation (for example, an image on the retina). Locke thought that a secondary quality such as a sensation of green could in no way resemble the arrangement of particles in matter that go to produce this sensation, although he thought that primary qualities such as shape, size, number, were really in objects. How can physical objects such as chairs and tables, or even physiological processes in the brain, give rise to mental items such as ideas? This is part of what became known as the mind-body problem. If all the contents of awareness are ideas, how can we know that anything exists apart from ideas? Descartes tried to address the last problem by reason. He began, echoing Parmenides, with a principle that he thought could not coherently be denied: I think, therefore I am (often given in his original Latin: Cogito ergo sum). From this principle, Descartes went on to construct a complete system of knowledge (which involves proving the existence of God, using, among other means, a version of the ontological argument). His view that reason alone could yield substantial truths about reality strongly influenced those philosophers usually considered modern rationalists (such as Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, and Christian Wolff), while provoking criticism from other philosophers who have retrospectively come to be grouped together as empiricists. Empiricism, in contrast to rationalism, downplays or dismisses the ability of reason alone to yield knowledge of the world, preferring to base any knowledge we have on our senses. John Locke propounded the classic empiricist view in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1689, developing a form of naturalism and empiricism on roughly scientific (and Newtonian) principles. During this era, religious ideas played a mixed role in the struggles that preoccupied secular philosophy. Bishop Berkeleys famous idealist refutation of key tenets of Isaac Newton is a case of an Enlightenment philosopher who drew substantially from religious ideas. Other influential religious thinkers of the time include Blaise Pascal, Joseph Butler, and Jonathan Edwards. Other major writers, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Edmund Burke, took a rather different path. The restricted interests of many of the philosophers of the time foreshadow the separation and specialization of different areas of philosophy that would occur in the 20th century. Skepticism in Philosophy: Skepticism is a philosophical attitude that questions the possibility of obtaining any sort of knowledge. It was first articulated by Pyrrho, who believed that everything could be doubted except appearances. Sextus Empiricus (2nd century CE) describes skepticism as an ability to place in antithesis, in any manner whatever, appearances and judgments, and thus to come first of all to a suspension of judgment and then to mental tranquility. Skepticism so conceived is not merely the use of doubt, but is the use of doubt for a particular end: a calmness of the soul, or ataraxia. Skepticism poses itself as a challenge to dogmatism, whose adherents think they have found the truth. Sextus noted that the reliability of perception may be questioned, because it is idiosyncratic to the perceiver. The appearance of individual things changes depending on whether they are in a group: for example, the shavings of a goats horn are white when taken alone, yet the intact horn is black. A pencil, when viewed lengthwise, looks like a stick; but when examined at the tip, it looks merely like a circle. Skepticism was revived in the early modern period by Michel de Montaigne and Blaise Pascal. Its most extreme exponent, however, was David Hume. Hume argued that there are only two kinds of reasoning: what he called probable and demonstrative (cf Humes fork). Neither of these two forms of reasoning can lead us to a reasonable belief in the continued existence of an external world. Demonstrative reasoning cannot do this, because demonstration (that is, deductive reasoning from well-founded premises) alone cannot establish the uniformity of nature (as captured by scientific laws and principles, for example). Such reason alone cannot establish that the future will resemble the past. We have certain beliefs about the world (that the sun will rise tomorrow, for example), but these beliefs are the product of habit and custom, and do not depend on any sort of logical inferences from what is already given certain. But probable reasoning (inductive reasoning), which aims to take us from the observed to the unobserved, cannot do this either: it also depends on the uniformity of nature, and this supposed uniformity cannot be proved, without circularity, by any appeal to uniformity. The best that either sort of reasoning can accomplish is conditional truth: if certain assumptions are true, then certain conclusions follow. So nothing about the world can be established with certainty. Hume concludes that there is no solution to the skeptical argument except, in effect, to ignore it. Even if these matters were resolved in every case, we would have in turn to justify our standard of justification, leading to an infinite regress (hence the term regress skepticism). Many philosophers have questioned the value of such skeptical arguments. The question of whether we can achieve knowledge of the external world is based on how high a standard we set for the justification of such knowledge. If our standard is absolute certainty, then we cannot progress beyond the existence of mental sensations. We cannot even deduce the existence of a coherent or continuing I that experiences these sensations, much less the existence of an external world. On the other hand, if our standard is too low, then we admit follies and illusions into our body of knowledge. This argument against absolute skepticism asserts that the practical philosopher must move beyond solipsism, and accept a standard for knowledge that is high but not absolute. Idealism in Philosophy: Idealism is the epistemological doctrine that nothing can be directly known outside of the minds of thinking beings. Or in an alternative stronger form, it is the metaphysical doctrine that nothing exists apart from minds and the contents of minds. In modern Western philosophy, the epistemological doctrine begins as a core tenet of Descartes that what is in the mind is known more reliably than what is known through the senses. The first prominent modern Western idealist in the metaphysical sense was George Berkeley. Berkeley argued that there is no deep distinction between mental states, such as feeling pain, and the ideas about so-called external things, that appear to us through the senses. There is no real distinction, in this view, between certain sensations of heat and light that we experience, which lead us to believe in the external existence of a fire, and the fire itself. Those sensations are all there is to fire. Berkeley expressed this with the Latin formula esse est percipi: to be is to be perceived. In this view the opinion, strangely prevailing upon men, that houses, mountains, and rivers have an existence independent of their perception by a thinking being is false. Forms of idealism were prevalent in philosophy from the 18th century to the early 20th century. Transcendental idealism, advocated by Immanuel Kant, is the view that there are limits on what can be understood, since there is much that cannot be brought under the conditions of objective judgment. Kant wrote his Critique of Pure Reason (1781-1787) in an attempt to reconcile the conflicting approaches of rationalism and empiricism, and to establish a new groundwork for studying metaphysics. Kants intention with this work was to look at what we know and then consider what must be true about it, as a logical consequence of, the way we know it. One major theme was that there are fundamental features of reality that escape our direct knowledge because of the natural limits of the human faculties. Although Kant held that objective knowledge of the world required the mind to impose a conceptual or categorical framework on the stream of pure sensory data a framework including space and time themselves he maintained that things-in-themselves existed independently of  our perceptions and judgments; he was therefore not an idealist in any simple sense. Indeed, Kants account of things-in-themselves is both controversial and highly complex. Continuing his work, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schelling dispensed with belief in the independent existence of the world, and created a thoroughgoing idealist philosophy. The most notable work of this German idealism was G. W. F. Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit, of 1807. Hegel admitted his ideas werent new, but that all the previous philosophies had been incomplete. His goal was to correctly finish their job. Hegel asserts that the twin aims of philosophy are to account for the contradictions apparent in human experience (which arise, for instance, out of the supposed contradictions between being and not being ), and also simultaneously to resolve and preserve these contradictions by showing their compatibility at a higher level of examination (being and not being are resolved with becoming) . This program of acceptance and reconciliation of contradictions is known as the Hegelian dialectic. Philosophers in the Hegelian tradition include Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, who coined the term projection as pertaining to our inability to recognize anything in the external world without projecting qualities of ourselves upon those things, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and the British idealists, notably T. H. Green, J. M. E. McTaggart, and F. H. Bradley. Few 20th century philosophers have embraced idealism. However, quite a few have embraced Hegelian dialectic. Immanuel Kants Copernican Turn also remains an important philosophical concept today. Pragmatism in Philosophy: Pragmatism was founded in the spirit of finding a scientific concept of truth, which is not dependent on either personal insight (or revelation) or reference to some metaphysical realm. The truth of a statement should be judged by the effect it has on our actions and truth should be seen as that which the whole of scientific enquiry will ultimately agree on. This should probably be seen as a guiding principle more than a definition of what it means for something to be true, though the details of how this principle should be interpreted have been subject to discussion since Peirce first conceived it. Like Rorty many seem convinced that Pragmatism holds that the truth of beliefs does not consist in their correspondence with reality, but in their usefulness and efficacy. The late 19th-century American philosophers Charles Peirce and William James were its co-founders, and it was later developed by John Dewey as instrumentalism. Since the usefulness of any belief at any time might be contingent on circumstance, Peirce and James conceptualised final truth as that which would be established only by the future, final settlement of all opinion. Critics have accused pragmatism of falling victim to a simple fallacy: because something that is true proves useful, that usefulness is the basis for its truth. Thinkers in the pragmatist tradition have included John Dewey, George Santayana,W. V. O. Quine and C. I. Lewis. Phenomenology in Philosophy: Edmund Husserls phenomenology was an ambitious attempt to lay the foundations for an account of the structure of conscious experience in general. An important part of Husserls phenomenological project was to show that all conscious acts are directed at or about objective content, a feature that Husserl called intentionality. In the first part of his two-volume work, the Logical Investigations (1901), he launched an extended attack on psychologism. In the second part, he began to develop the technique of descriptive phenomenology, with the aim of showing how objective judgments are indeed grounded in conscious experience not, however, in the first-person experience of particular individuals, but in the properties essential to any experiences of the kind in question. He also attempted to identify the essential properties of any act of meaning. He developed the method further in Ideas (1913) as transcendental phenomenology, proposing to ground actual experience, and thus all fields of human knowledge, in the structure of consciousness of an ideal, or transcendental, ego. Later, he attempted to reconcile his transcendental standpoint with an acknowledgement of the intersubjective life-world in which real individual subjects interact. Husserl published only a few works in his lifetime, which treat phenomenology mainly in abstract methodological terms; but he left an enormous quantity of unpublished concrete analyses. Husserls work was immediately influential in Germany, with the foundation of phenomenological schools in Munich and Gottingen. Phenomenology later achieved international fame through the work of such philosophers as Martin Heidegger (formerly Husserls research assistant), Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Indeed, through the work of Heidegger and Sartre, Husserls focus on subjective experience influenced aspects of existentialism. Existentialism in Philosophy: Although they didnt use the term, the nineteenth century philosophers Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche are widely regarded as the fathers of existentialism. Their influence, however, has extended beyond existentialist thought. The main target of Kierkegaards writings was the idealist philosophical system of Hegel which, he thought, ignored or excluded the inner subjective life of living human beings. Kierkegaard, conversely, held that truth is subjectivity, arguing that what is most important to an actual human being are questions dealing with an individuals inner relationship to existence. In particular, Kierkegaard, a Christian, believed that the truth of religious faith was a subjective question, and one to be wrestled with passionately. Although Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were among his influences, the extent to which the German philosopher Martin Heidegger should be considered an existentialist is debatable. In Being and Time he presented a method of rooting philosophical explanations in human existence (Dasein) to be analysed in terms of existential categories (existentiale); and this has led many commentators to treat him as an important figure in the existentialist movement. However, in The Letter on Humanism, Heidegger explicitly rejected the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre became the best-known proponent of existentialism, exploring it not only in theoretical works such as Being and Nothingness , but also in plays and novels. Sartre, along with Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir, all represented an avowedly atheistic branch of existentialism, which is now more closely associated with their ideas of nausea, contingency, bad faith, and the absurd than with Kierkegaards spiritual angst. Nevertheless, the focus on the individual human being, responsible before the universe for the authenticity of his or her existence, is common to all these thinkers. Structuralism and post-structuralism in Philosophy: Inaugurated by the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, structuralism sought to ferret out the underlying systems through analysing the discourses they both limit and make possible. Saussure conceived of the sign as being delimited by all the other signs in the system, and ideas as being incapable of existence prior to linguistic structure, which articulates thought. This led continental thought away from humanism, and toward what was termed the decentering of man: language is no longer spoken by man to express a true inner self, but language speaks man. Structuralism sought the province of a hard science, but its positivism soon came under fire by poststructuralism, a wide field of thinkers, some of whom were once themselves structuralists, but later came to criticize it. Structuralists believed they could analyse systems from an external, objective standing, for example, but the poststructuralists argued that this is incorrect, that one cannot transcend structures and thus analysis is itself determined by what it examines, that systems are ultimately self-referential. Furthermore, while the distinction between the signifier and signified was treated as crystalline by structuralists, poststructuralists asserted that every attempt to grasp the signified would simply result in the proliferation of more signifiers, so meaning is always in a state of being deferred, making an ultimate interpretation impossible. Structuralism came to dominate continental philosophy from the 1960s onward, encompassing thinkers as diverse as Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan. The analytic tradition in Philosophy: The term analytic philosophy roughly designates a group of philosophical methods that stress clarity of meaning above all other criteria. The philosophy developed as a critique of Hegel and his followers in particular, and of speculative philosophy in general. Some schools in the group include 20th-century realism, logical atomism, logical positivism, and ordinary language. The motivation is to have philosophical studies go beyond personal opinion and begin to have the cogency of mathematical proofs. In 1921, Ludwig Wittgenstein published his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which gave a rigidly logical account of linguistic and philosophical issues. At the time, he understood most of the problems of philosophy as mere puzzles of language, which could be solved by clear thought. Years later he would reverse a number of the positions he had set out in the Tractatus, in for example his second major work, Philosophical Investigations (1953). Investigations encouraged the development of ordinary language philosophy, which was promoted by Gilbert Ryle, J.L. Austin, and a few others. The ordinary language philosophy thinkers shared a common outlook with many older philosophers (Jeremy Bentham, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Stuart Mill), and it was this style of philosophical inquiry that characterized English-language philosophy for the second half of the 20th century. Ethics and political in Philosophy: From ancient times, and well beyond them, the roots of justification for political authority were inescapably tied to outlooks on human nature. In The Republic, Plato declared that the ideal society would be run by a council of philosopher-kings, since those best at philosophy are best able to realize the good. Even Plato, however, required philosophers to make their way in the world for many years before beginning their rule at the age of fifty. For Aristotle, humans are political animals (i. e. social animals), and governments are set up in order to pursue good for the community. Aristotle reasoned that, since the state (polis) was the highest form of community, it has the purpose of pursuing the highest good. Aristotle viewed political power as the result of natural inequalities in skill and virtue. Because of these differences, he favored an aristocracy of the able and virtuous. For Aristotle, the person cannot be complete unless he or she lives in a community. His The Nicomachean Ethics and The Politics are meant to be read in that order. The first book addresses virtues (or excellences) in the person as a citizen; the second addresses the proper form of government to ensure that citizens will be virtuous, and therefore complete. Both books deal with the essential role of justice in civic life. Nicolas of Cusa rekindled Platonic thought in the early 15th century. He promoted democracy in Medieval Europe, both in his writings and in his organization of the Council of Florence. Unlike Aristotle and the Hobbesian tradition to follow, Cusa saw human beings as equal and divine (that is, made in Gods image), so democracy would be the only just form of government. Cusas views are credited by some as sparking the Italian Renaissance, which gave rise to the notion of Nation-States. Later, Niccolo Machiavelli rejected the views of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas as unrealistic. The ideal sovereign is not the embodiment of the moral virtues; rather the sovereign does whatever is successful and necessary, rather than what is morally praiseworthy. Thomas Hobbes also contested many elements of Aristotles views. For Hobbes, human nature is essentially anti-social: people are essentially egoistic, and this egoism makes life difficult in the natural state of things. Moreover, Hobbes argued, though people may have natural inequalities, these are trivial, since no particular talents or virtues that people may have will make them safe from harm inflicted by others. For these reasons, Hobbes concluded that the state arises from a common agreement to raise the community out of the state of nature. This can only be done by the establishment of a sovereign, in which (or whom) is vested complete control over the community, and which is able to inspire awe and terror in its subjects. Many in the Enlightenment were unsatisfied with existing doctrines in political philosophy, which seemed to marginalize or neglect the possibility of a democratic state. David Hume was among the first philosophers to question the existence of God, circa 1700. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was among those who attempted to overturn these doctrines: he responded to Hobbes by claiming that a human is by nature a kind of noble savage, and that society and social contracts corrupt this nature. Another critic was John Locke. In Second Treatise on Government he agreed with Hobbes that the nation-state was an efficient tool for raising humanity out of a deplorable state, but he argued that the sovereign might become an abominable institution compared to the relatively benign unmodulated state of nature. Following the doctrine of the fact-value distinction, due in part to the influence of David Hume and his student Adam Smith, appeals to human nature for political justification were weakened. Nevertheless, many political philosophers, especially moral realists, still make use of some essential human nature as a basis for their arguments. Consequentialism, Deontological ethics, and Virtue ethics in Philosophy: One debate that has commanded the attention of ethicists in the modern era has been between consequentialism (actions are to be morally evaluated solely by their consequences) and deontology (actions are to be morally evaluated solely by consideration of agents duties, the rights of those whom the action concerns, or both).

Overview of Marine Invertebrates

Overview of Marine Invertebrates Aretha Rae Boezak Most South African fisherman depends on marine invertebrates to lure fish in order to catch them. These baits are sometimes also used commercially. Some species of invertebrates tend to be quite popular baits, whereas others wouldn’t even be considered. The use of these organisms as fishing bait can have its pro’s and con’s. The most successful baits have been exploited, especially those that are more successful as a live bait. The success of the baits may be as a result of a chemical or a scent that most fish are attracted to. Also, they are quite meaty. Marine invertebrates are some of the most fascinating organisms on the earth. They are found in a variety of locations and is of extreme ecological importance to most marine organisms. It has been found that a vast number of organisms feed on these invertebrates, as they are quite nutrient rich. Marine invertebrates are classified into 12 different phyla. These include: Porifera, Cnidaria, Ctenophora, Platyhelminthes, Nemertea, Nematoda, Rotifera, Annelida, Molluscs, Arthropoda and Echinodermata. Some popular invertebrates that are not marine are spikes (also called maggots), meal worms and wax worms. Spikes are th e larvae of some fly species, whereas meal worms are the larvae of the darkling beetle species and wax worms, that of moth or bee moths. The phyla Nematoda, Annelida and Molluscs are the most popular invertebrate baits. The rest are not as popular as fishing baits. The reason for this might be as a result of defensive attributes or assets that those organisms have. Some of these include Cnidarians. Cnidarians mainly use chemicals as a defensive attribute. Some contain dreadful neurotoxins that can be fatal to both man and animal. Though some fish species that feed on these organisms are consumed by mankind, it might seem a bit too dangerous to use them as bait. Some are just as dangerous dead or alive. The problem isn’t the bait itself or fish that might be spoiled, it is the handling of the organism. Given that some fisherman are uneducated or do not pursue in the danger of handling these organisms. In South Africa invertebrates like mussels, lug worms and mud prawns are amongst the famous baits for both anglers and commercial fisherman. Commercially, mostly vertebrates are used as bait depending on the type of fish that are caught. Pelagic fishes like hake and common fish in the Cape, like Kabeljou/kobs, can be lured with invertebrates as bait. Annelids like lug worms are also commonly used for bait. Lug worms belong to the class Polychaeta and are found in rocky shores. Lugworms live in sand mixtures where it forms a U-shaped burrow. They are also called burrowers and are tremendous when fishing for Kabeljou, Spotted gunter, White- and Red stumpnose, Dageraad, Yellowbelly Rockcod, Slinger, White steenbras, Hottentot and Bronze. Another is the free swimming Polychaet, Alitta succinea, commonly known as Rag worms (also known as the pile worm or clam worm). Rag worms are a marine annelid that belongs to the family Nereididae. They can be found on the bottom of shallow marine waters. These worms are an important nutrient source for crustaceans and bottom-feeding fish. Arenicola loveni, commonly known is the blood worm. These belong to the family Arenicolidae. Though they are endemic to South Africa, blood worms is an example of an over exploited bait. They are found in estuaries, where they dig deep, u-shaped burrows with one end forming a funnelled depression. According to Branch et al.(2010: 70) â€Å"water is drawn through the tube, oxygenating the sediment and encouraging bacterial growth.† Their name was derived from the fact that they have haemoglobin present in their blood, therefore when damaged, they bleed red blood. The collection of Pseudoneires variegata, commonly known as the mussel worm is also used as bait, but it’s collection destroys large areas of mussel bed. The Wonder-worm (Eunice aphroditois) and the estuarine wonder- worm (Marphysa elitueni) are also amongst those used as bait. However, the bite of the wonder-worm can inflict pain as it is carnivorous and has large jaws. Both these worms gravel under boulders, but the estuarine wonder-worm also burrows in sandbanks. There are a number of molluscs that fish find palatable. Molluscs work particularly well when fishing for snoek, natal stumpnose and the most common fish in the Cape shore, Galjoen. The only problem with molluscs is the possibility of destroying beds, which destroys the habitat of other organisms as well. Mussels are the most common belonging to the class Bivalves. Branch et al. (2010:146): â€Å"As the name implies, bivalves are enclosed by a pair of shell valves, hinged together along the back by an elastic ligament and extending down on either side of their body.† Mussels are a good bait to use when angling in rocky shores. Fulvia papyracea, commonly known as pencil bait, also known as Razor shells, make tremendous bait. They burrow themselves deeply in clean, firm sand of lagoons and estuaries. Cephalopods like squid are also used as bait. There are also a few famous crustaceans in the bait community. These include crabs, shrimp and prawns. Most anglers also use mud prawns, Upogebia Africana, as bait. These are one of South Africa’s few macro benthic invertebrates. Being very much exploited, mud prawns are found all the way form Lamberts Bay in the West coast to Maputo in Mozambique. These are limited to distribution as a result of temperature tolerances. These species are only found in estuaries that are connected to the ocean or at least exposed to the ocean for the majority of the time. Ecologically, the mud prawn is quite of importance in the estuarine ecosystem. This is as a result of their burrowing and filter feeding. The exploitation of these organisms can lead to severe eutrophication of the estuarine, because of the diverse effects on micro algae and bacteria . There are laws concerning the gathering of the invertebrate organisms gathered as bait in South Arica. With regards to angling, these baits are protected by limitations on number, size and method and by licenses in KwaZulu-Natal. The number per day for bait organisms are: Black mussel 25 ;Bloodworm 5; clam 8; limpet 15; mud crab(giant) 2; other crabs 15; octopus 2; oyster 25; periwinkle 50; polychaete worms 10; prawn(mud and sand) 50; pencil bait 20. Instruments with a blade width of 38mm or less may be used to remove limpets or black mussels and polychaetes may only be dug by hand. Given the vast majority of invertebrates are marine; they can be used for fresh water fishing as well. Fresh water invertebrates can also be used for marine fishing. In South Africa marine invertebrates have proven to be the best fishing bait for anglers, as some species can be used for all types of fishing. However, by using them as bait they are sometimes exploited and can have severe effects on a whole ecosystem. References Beer, A. Maar, D. 2007. Marine fish sea creatures. London: Hermes House. Branch, G M. 1978. The living shores of Southern Africa. Cape Town: C. Struik publishers. Branch, G.M., Griffiths, C.L., Branch, M.L. Beckley, L.E. 2010. Two Oceans. Cape Town: Struik Publishers. Edwards, A. Prichard, M . 1978 . Fishing for beginners. London: William Collins sons and company ltd. Hutchings, L., Augustyn, C.J, Cockcroft, A., Van der Lingen, C., Coetzee, J., Leslie, R.W., Tarr, R.J., Oosthuizen, H., Lipinski, M.R., Roberts, M.R., Wilke, C., Crawford, R., Shannon, L.J. Mayekiso, M. 2009. Marine fisheries monotiring programmes in South Africa. South African Journal of Marine Science, 182-192. Payne, A.T.L Crawford, R.J.M. 1989. Oceans of life off Southern Africa. Cape Town: Vlaeberg publishers. Van Der Elst, R. 2001. Everyone’s guide to sea fishes of Southern Africa. Cape Town: Struik Publishers.

Customization And Personalization Through Emarketing Marketing Essay

Customization And Personalization Through Emarketing Marketing Essay The most current and relevant literature on e-marketing is examined and the relevant areas disused in various literature which has connection with the objective of the business project are explored in this chapter. E-business and e-commerce are modern form of business which is performed in a technologically advanced business environment. The e-business is termed as the application of information technology for internal business process as well as activities in which a company engages during commercial activity. These activities can include functional activities such as finance, marketing, human resources management and operations (Philips, 2003). Ecommerce is the use of Information and communication technology to enable external activities and relationship with individuals, groups and other businesses (Laudon and Traver, 2002).Due to the growth in electronic media for business functions , the way of interaction between the supplier, distributor, seller and customer has become changed and more enhanced. E-commerce channels allow businesses to get to the customer faster, with more velocity, and more value (Budhwani, 2001) E-Marketing E-marketing is a process of building and maintaining customer relationship through online activities to facilitate the exchange of ideas, products and services that satisfy the goals of both parties (Mohammed et al, 2001). Strauss et al (2003) suggest that e-marketing covers a wide range of IT related applications with three main aims: Transforming marketing strategies to create more customer value through more effective segmentation, targeting, differentiation and positioning strategies; more efficiently planning and executing the conception, distribution, promotion and pricing of goods, services and ideas; creating exchanges that satisfy individual consumer and organisational customers objectives. Business is mainly based on exchange process; e-marketing has the ability to be beneficial for all the people who involve in the business. Mainly organization has realised this and started to refocus their marketing strategy using e-marketing. E-Marketing versus Traditional Marketing As number of individuals spending their time on internet is increasing rapidly, e-marketing is growing as a powerful marketing tool. Due to advancement and utilisation of technology in Internet has grown rapidly, thereby e-marketing gained more attention by most of the firms and due to this the traditional marketing methods loses its value. The traditional marketing channels like as television, print media, and radio are becoming less popular. The traditional media are competing with the electronic media for seeking customer attention but the Internet and appear to be gaining over the other media. On implementing E-Marketing a company can reach its customer directly through website, e-mail, social networking sites and various other means. E-Marketing is cost effective and also gains lot of attention of the customer. These factors make E-Marketing to overlap the traditional marketing. The Internet is assumed to be an important channel for marketing and distribution of products and services. This is, among other things, due to the cost-effectiveness of the Internet and the convenience for customers. With the Internet marketers can reach out to a broad customer base, locate target customers, identify their needs and communicate with them at a relatively low cost. The Internet provides an opportunity for market testing and optimization. Increasing digitalization will make it progressively easier to experimentally alter particular aspects of a business and quickly observe how customers respond (Wyner, 2000) Benefits of e-marketing E-marketing has several benefits which can be capitalised by the organisation to gain competitive advantages; those benefits are listed below, The web allows non-linear communication in which there is free flow and exchange of information, and there is a potential for two-way communication between a business and its audiences in different contexts on a one to one basis, and a many-to-many basis. The many-to-many model involves communication between customers (Hoffman and Novak, 1995). E-marketing can increase an organisations geographic coverage beyond its traditional operating area. E-marketing will also make the organisation to have a global presence and a wider reach. New market and new customers can be obtained by the company, if the e-marketing is utilised effectively. Moreover e-marketing provides a cheap way of communicating with customers and the business transactions can also be cared out in low cost. A website can be used as a powerful business tool for carrying out sales and services all day providing greater convenience for the customer. Besides that e-marketing can be used for an online sales promotion and provide targeted offers and special privileges to the customer. E-Marketing is fast and flexible communication tool and helps to fulfil the customer retention objective of the company. The internet provides rich sources of marketing data for the marketers, which can be used for decision-making purposes. Additionally e-marketing research supported with appropriate software and technology provides a good data analysis to streamline the process of research. Similarly e-marketing help to improve the brand name and provides a better platform for development of the brand presence. The purpose of branding is to facilitate the organisations task of getting and maintaining a loyal customer base in a cost-effective manner to achieve the highest possible return on investment (De Chernatony and McDonald, 1998, p.17) E-marketing problems There are also few problems with e-marketing that marketers must understand and respond to. Those are outlined below: A companys marketing environment consists of the actors and forces outside marketing that affect the marketing managements ability to develop and maintain successful transactions with its target customers. The marketing environment offers both threats and opportunities (Kotler et al, 2001) The major problem of e-marketing is lack of trust among the online users to make transactions with unknown traders and the customers resistance to change, mainly older and disadvantage people. Next big problem is customers concerns over privacy issues such as spam and unwanted marketing communication. Rising network security doubts over fraud and hacking cause huge setback for e-marketing. Moreover the technology gap between the organization and customer is a disadvantage. There are also difficulties and social impacts in cross-broader trading using electronic media. Customization and Personalization through E-marketing The e-marketing provides customization and personalization benefits to both firm and the customer. Customisation refers to more personalised products availability and tailored communication. The Internet marketing environment offers extensive customization and personalization opportunities. The evolution from marketing on the averages to marketing on the differences is a very prominent theme and a major advantage of the Web market compared to real environments (Reitman, 1994). Customization provides the ability to the customer to order product uniquely as per their need and specification. This helps the firms to know more about the individual customer, so that the offers and communications can be tailored as per the behaviour of the customer. This provides a great competitive advantage. E-marketing and Customer Focus The customer focus is very essential for any business organisation and marketing activities are will be build to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction. Customer loyalty is emerged from satisfaction and from loyalty come more profitability and sales. The customer is the key element for all business but the e-marketing make customer even more powerful. Due the technology advancement customers are more demanding with search engines, more substitute product availability and multi-channel user friendly technology. Customer makes up the online communities of an organisation. Consumer behaviour growing to be more complex. But e-marketing coupled with emerging technologies enables more precise segmentation and targeting of customer. E-marketing helps to implement personalised offering to each customer, this done by obtaining permission and sends offers to target customer. The interactive nature of internet allows getting quicker customer feedback. These factors of e-marketing helps fi rms to remain customer focused.

The Role of the Watch in William Faulkners A Rose for Emily Essay

The Role of the Watch in William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily Even the casual reader of William Faulkner will recognize the element of time as a crucial one in much of the writer's work, and the critical attention given to the subject of time in Faulkner most certainly fills many pages of criticism. A goodly number of those pages of criticism deal with the well-known short story, "A Rose for Emily." Several scholars, most notably Paul McGlynn, have worked to untangle the confusing chronology of this work (461-62). Others have given a variety of symbolic and psychological reasons for Emily Grierson's inability (or refusal) to acknowledge the passage of time. Yet in all of this careful literary analysis, no one has discussed one troubling and therefore highly significant detail. When we first meet Miss Emily, she carries in a pocket somewhere within her clothing an "invisible watch ticking at the end of [a] gold chain" (Faulkner 121). What would a woman like Emily Grierson, who seems to us fixed in the past and oblivious to any passing of time, n eed with a watch? An awareness of the significance of this watch, however, is crucial for a clear understanding of Miss Emily herself. The watch's placement in her pocket, its unusually loud ticking, and the chain to which it is attached illustrate both her attempts to control the passage of the years and the consequences of such an ultimately futile effort. The idiom of having something or someone "in one's pocket," that is, under one's personal control, is important here, for by wearing the watch in her pocket rather than, say, pinned to her bodice, Emily demonstrates her effort to subjugat e the clock to her own will. In staring down the aldermen who have come about the taxes, ... ...for what is new to us, we soon learn, is not new to Miss Emily. Repeatedly, she has attempted to control time, to fix people and events in the past, and the stru cture of the story mirrors this. Also, since the story begins and ends, more or less, with Emily's funeral (the events of her life being presented to us in a series of flashbacks), very little actual time passes in the course of the narrativ e. By telling her story after her death, Faulkner shows that, in the only way possible, time now stands still for her. Thus this one small detail, the hidden yet constantly ticking watch, becomes a symbol for the horror and futility that are Emily Grierson. WORKS CITED Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Collected Stories. New York: Vintage, 1977. 119-30. McGlynn, Paul. "The Chronology of `A Rose for Emily.'" Studies in Short Fiction, 6 (1969): 461-62.

Essays --

Role of Open Design in Engineering â€Å"Before I start teaching you all Industrial Revolution, I have a question?†. My history teacher drifted towards the blackboard and wrote - â€Å"Who invented the Steam Engine?† I raised my hand promptly. â€Å"Yes, Ankit.† I stood up - â€Å"James Watt, maam!† â€Å"You are correct. It was the invention of Steam Engine by James Watt that changed the world and led to the industrial revolution.† I gave a equanimous smile and took my seat. Boldrin and Levine mentioned in their book Against Intellectual Monopoly how James Watt got the idea of allowing steam to expand and condense in separate containers while repairing a small Newcomen steam engine. In 1768, he applied for a patent on the idea after doing a series of improvements. He spent the next six months working hard to obtain his patent, made an alliance with the rich industrialist Matthew Boulton and even secured an act of Parliament extending his patent until the year 1800. In the name of economic freedom, the great statesman Edmund Burke spoke eloquently in Parliament against the creation of this unnecessary ...

Comparing Atticus to Jake Essay

To Kill a Mockingbird,? and Jake Brigance, the leading man of ? A Time to Kill,? are both brave, determined lawyers. Though they share some similar techniques in the way they defend their clients, overall their methods as lawyers are quite different. In the courtroom, Atticus? qualities are the same as they are in his everyday life. He takes being a lawyer seriously, and sees it as a calling, rather than a job. He is an experienced lawyer, and uses cross examination to discover that Bob Ewell was left handed, and that Tom Robinson? left arm was unusable ? both crucial pieces of evidence for his case. Jake, on the other hand, is young and inexperienced. Near the beginning of the case, Jake says to Carl Lee, ? We’re going to lose this case, Carl lee. There are no more points of law to argue here. I want to cop a plea, maybe Buckley will cop us a second degree murder and we can get you just life in prison.? He was given assistance by his mentor, Lucius, and used his methods, rath er than his own. However, as it came to the end of the film, Jake learned how to successfully defend Carl Lee on his own. He connected with the jury, realising what would help him win the case. ?Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood, left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she’s white.? Atticus? characteristics remain generally constant throughout the book, but he was swayed a little by his sister? s input. He maintained his dignity, even when Bob Ewell spat in his face, saying, ? So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that’s something I’ll gladly take. He had to take it out on somebody and I’d rather it be me than that houseful of children out there.? This persecution is also an example of Atticus being linked to the theme of prejudice in the story. Jake develops dramatically throughout the film. Over time he learned to accept help from Ellen Roark, instead of being proud, and showed self control when tempted by her. He tried to create a true friendship with Carl Lee, and learned to find his own witnesses for the case, instead of relying on his mentor. Jake? family are the most important thing to him, and were the main reason he took the case. ?When I look at her though, I cannot help but think about Tonya,? he said of his young daughter; he didn? t want the same thing to happen to her. He also didn? t compromise his marriage when given the chance. He speaks of truth and from his heart, questioning the courtroom, ? What is it in us that seeks the truth? Is it our minds or is it our hearts Jake also believed in the death pena lty; therefore he was probably not a Christian. Atticus, however, was a brave Christian man with moral values. He was polite and humble, and saw everyone as equals. Scout said of her father, ? It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.? Atticus shows that he is above the people of Maycomb when he took Tom Robinson? s case, rather than sharing their racist feelings. However, he still respected their choice; ? They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions†¦ ut before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.? Even when he and his family were deemed as outcasts, he didn? t drop his case. He discouraged his children? s prejudiced attitude towards Boo and the other Radleys, because he chose not to believe the rumours that were spread around Maycomb. Jake opposed the rapists? racist and prejudiced attitude towards Negroes and women. He was not dispirited by the behaviours of the jury and injustice of the court system, or manipulated by the KKK. At the end of the film, Jake breaks through and forms a friendship with Carl Lee when he shows him that he cares by taking his family to Carl Lee? s house for a barbeque. Both Atticus and Jake show great character throughout ? To Kill a Mockingbird? and ? A Time to Kill.? While Jake develops significantly during the film, ? A Time to Kill,? Atticus does not develop much throughout ? To Kill a Mockingbird? ; however, he was already a humble, courageous man in the beginning of the story. Both men stick up for what they believe in, and are not swayed by the thoughts and opinions of the townspeople where they live. During his ordeal, Atticus shows greater character than Jake did, because he takes the case more seriously and with dignity. He remains calm, even when things are hard for him. Jake, on the other hand, feels the need to send his family away so that he doesn? t have to worry about them. The reason he took the case in the beginning was because for selfish reasons; because of his feeling of guilt, and not wanting the same thing to happen to his young daughter – rather than taking the case only out of the kindness of his heart, as Atticus did.

Filipino Overseas Contract Workers in the US Essay

For the first study, it is expected that the researcher would determine the factors that motivate Filipinos to leave their own country and work abroad. This would include their financial situations in the Philippines together with family size, occupation of spouse, occupation or educational level of the children, and other demographics. Since it is quantitative, it is expected that the study will be able to generate statistics in order to determine the best reason for their migration. Participants would probably prefer to migrate because of more compensation and support for multicultural groups (Zalaquett, et.al, 2008). This also includes an opportunity to work with the protection of the law implemented in the United States. Qualitative data would suggest poor chances of development for them in their own country. It is also expected in the trend study results that US foreign policy will be implemented for the migration of Filipinos in the country. More Filipinos are expected to leave their country and eventually take their families after they have established their lives in the States. However, the study does not make use of any scale in concluding for its objectives. The study is also limited to Filipinos whereas other races such as Israelites and Palestinians are not included. Also, the focus is only on the reason why Filipinos prefer to leave the Philippines and work in other countries (American Psychological Association, 2002). Based on the expected outcomes of the study, it is recommended by the researcher that further studies be initiated on this specific topic. It is also recommended that a study be conducted on job satisfaction of Filipino overseas workers (OFWs) in the United States and compare them with those who prefer to stay in the Philippines. A comparative study on worker’s rights and social security policies between the Philippines and other OFW filled countries is also recommended to further supplement the results of the present study. References American Psychological Association. (2002). Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code Of Conduct (PDF). Zalaquett, C. , Foley, P. , Tillotson, K. , Dinsmore, J. , Hof, D. (2008). Multicultural and Social Justice Training for Counselor Education Programs and Colleges of Education: Rewards and Challenges. Journal of Counseling & Development, Volume 86, Number 3, 323 – 329.