Mastering Essay Writing and Discursive Modes
Understanding the Essay as a Literary Genre
The essay is one of the most popular and cultivated literary genres today. It is a written statement presenting a personal and subjective interpretation of any subject, without necessarily delving into exhaustive detail. Essays can be historical, philosophical, scientific, and more.
Characteristics of the Essay
Though a very mixed genre, the essay typically exhibits the following characteristics:
- Variety and breadth of topics: Literary, philosophical, religious,
Human Rights: Natural Law vs Legal Positivism
Natural Law Doctrines on Human Rights
According to the natural law argument, the rational nature itself contains inherent and inalienable trends or operating dynamics. These trends or dynamics are subject to potential or natural powers of action within the social organization. According to this conception, human rights lie in each subject as immediate demands of their particular way of being human. Thus, individuals have rational evidence that these rights are owed to them by virtue of their own
Read MoreAncient Greek Philosophy: Early Thinkers and Their Ideas
The Milesian School
Thales of Miletus
Thales of Miletus was a mathematician, astronomer, and politician. He affirmed that the Earth rests on water, that water is the principle of all things, that all things are full of gods, and that everything is alive and vibrant.
Anaximander
Anaximander: A continuation of Thales’ thought. He claimed that the Earth is spherical and the center of the world. For him, the beginning of everything is the Apeiron (the undefined, non-empirical, immortal, indestructible,
Read MoreNietzsche’s Zarathustra: Will to Power, Eternal Return, Superman
The message of Zarathustra covers several key themes in Nietzsche’s philosophy.
1. The Will to Power
The Will to Power is not that of the psychologists, nor does it coincide with the will of Schopenhauer, although it is inspired by it. Nor is it passive will, the will to obey, the will towards the nothingness of nihilism, the will for man’s theoretical truth, the will to seek pleasure and avoid pain, nor even the will to live. On the contrary, life is Will to Power, and this is the will to excel,
Read MoreSwift’s Paradox: Literary Genius and Controversial Views
Swift’s Vision of Society and Humanity
Alas, not even the genius of Swift was equal to producing a specimen by which we could judge the poetry of the Houyhnhnms. It sounds as though it were chilly stuff (in heroic couplets, presumably), and not seriously in conflict with the principles of ‘Reason’. Happiness is notoriously difficult to describe, and pictures of a just and well-ordered society are seldom either attractive or convincing. Most creators of ‘favorable’ Utopias, however, are concerned
Read MorePhilosophical and Sociological Concepts: Key Thinkers & Theories
Key Philosophical and Sociological Concepts
Philosophical Perspectives on Humanity and Society
Descartes
René Descartes understood the human being as a self-consciousness.
Kant
Immanuel Kant argued that reason orders and imposes its laws on the world, thereby configuring it.
Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau contended that men have lost their natural state of goodness due to society. He believed they must decide what their nature should be.
Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche was a thinker who dared to push the
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