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What can we do to inspire change in people today?

May 27th, 2009
Serendipity asked:


I tend to think the majority of the people in our society are so preoccupied with doing whatever it takes to keep their minds off of the real issues of the world and human race.Too busy eating, drinking & working themselves to death to conciously say, there are issues in this world that will affect my children, grandchildren and the future of the human race and earth we live on if I don’t wake up and choose to change the way I live. Maybe they think that they are too small or insignificant to make a difference. Maybe the thought doesn’t even cross their minds b/c they are too selfishly wrapped up into their own existence. Maybe they have never looked at it in a broad perspective, seeing the whole human race as a dormant being of the universe, non-productive and virtually non existent on the grand scheme of things due our destructive nature-we are destroying the planet we live on, killing each other, fighting over things that really don’t matter in the end with no large scale plan in sight that will save us when all of our resources on earth are used. Why can’t people put their brainpower together to be productive and work on advancing us forward technologically so we can be productive and start initiating serious plans of seeking other places to inhabit (and hopefully not destroy!) We need a goal as a human race to work toward that can provoke us to make that change to excite us and entice us to want to live better and create a better future for our offspring and the rest of the human race. Is it that we just don’t see a better future? Is it that we have been reaching for these ultimate world goals that have set us up for disaster and failure? We’ve been trying to attain world peace yet it’s unattainable unless another goal has been met first or another goal has been presented to inspire people to strive for world peace? What would the ultimate universal goal of humans be if we were able to obtain world peace? Maybe humans need a direction as a whole to move toward. What can we do with the universe that would inspire people to want to change?

Rebecca

Philosophy , ,

Is there a “case suitable for treatment” in your team ?

May 13th, 2009
ffantasizing asked:


I read this Yahoo answer
< Here is a description of the office bully.

====================================
A workplace bully subjects the
target to unjustified criticism and trivial faultfinding.
In addition, he or she humiliates the target, especially in front of others, and ignores, overrules, isolates and excludes the target. If the bully is the target's superior, he or she may: set the target up for failure by setting unrealistic goals or deadlines, or denying necessary information and
resources; either overload the target with work or take all work away (sometimes replacing proper work with demeaning jobs); or increase responsibility while removing authority. Regardless of specific tactics, the
intimidation is driven by the bully's need to control others.
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I read this and realised “we have a problem”.

Samson

Philosophy ,

Is my paper any good?

November 23rd, 2008
annie asked:


John Dewey
The philosopher we decided to research was John Dewey. We chose him for many reasons, one of them being because he was concerned with ethics. We knew that ethics is important in our daily life, so it was something that would be good to find out about. Since he was a pragmatist and an instrumentalist, he had a practical approach to philosophy, and that was interesting to us. John Dewey created things that are still used today.
John Dewey was a pragmatist who founded a doctrine called Instrumentalism. Instrumentalism is a philosophy that is very practical because it doesn’t consider anything that cannot be observed or can have a practical use. Pragmatism is the philosophy that attempts to simplify problems. The main idea of pragmatism is that the meaning of truth is something that is accepted by one or more groups of people and it satisfies a need. It became important in the U.S. during the early 1900’s.Ethics is the study of values, customs, and answers questions such as “What do we do?” or “How should I live?” He was very influential in education and ethics. The word ethics came from the Greek word ethos which means the character and morals of a group of people. It covers research of ideas like good and evil, right and wrong, and responsibility. Ethics involves relating the desirable to the desired. It attempts to help us understand which ways of life are worth following and which are wrong.
As mentioned before Dewey’s doctrine is called instrumentalism. Dewey believed that knowledge was needed to control the environment to improve the quality of the human way of life. You can control the environment through your actions and your thoughts.
Ethics affects our life in many ways whether we realize it or not. Without ethics our world could be a complete war zone. Without ethics people wouldn’t know right from wrong. People would have morals that were not concerned with their best interests, and would not understand the consequences of their actions. Ethics is what helps us live responsibly. Pragmatism also affects our lives, it helps us approach questions in a practical way. Without Pragmatism, it would be hard for us to accept the facts of life.
John Dewey was born on October 20th, 1849 in Burlington, Vermont. He came from a middle class family. He was a very inquisitive boy, which led him to go to college. In 1879, he graduated from the University of Vermont. He worked for three years as a high school teacher in Oil City, but soon decided that he would rather teach his own way than the way he had to teach at the high school in. He decided to borrow some money and go to graduate school and study philosophy. John Dewey received his Ph.D. from the School of Arts & Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in 1884. In 1894, Dewey joined the staff at the University of Chicago. It was there that he started expressing his beliefs on ethics and pragmatism. He also started the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago to test out his educational theories. “Learning by doing” was the concept of the school. During that period of time, Dewey worked on a few books, one of them being “The School and Society” which was published in 1899. 5 years after that book was published, Dewey decided to leave his teaching post at the University of Chicago and move to the east coast. For the next 48 years, John Dewey continued to write books about his ethical and educational philosophies. He was also the professor of philosophy at both Colombia University and the Teacher’s College University. John Dewey was known as the father of functional psychology. Throughout his whole life, John Dewey made contributions to the philosophical world.
One of the things Dewey is most known for is his role in progressive education and his part in ethics. In his book “Experience and Education”, Dewey gives an overview of his approach to teaching and education while he discusses the relationship between experience and learning. He believed that children needed to learn interactive, physical, and emotional skills before they do any serious intellectual activity. Dewey wrote what he thought about morals and truth in his book “The Quest for Certainty”. Dewey believed that each group of people had their own morals. He thought that if one group of people convinced others that their morals were true, that the moral would become a truth. Dewey’s strongest point of view was that knowledge is not something that can be transferred by word of mouth but must be found out for ones self by experimenting.
Like many great philosophers, John Dewey had various influences. Dewey was greatly inspired by the English biologist Charles Darwin. From reading Darwin’s works, he got the idea that a human being is like a very complicated organism that needs to function within its environment. He found that successful functioning requires the organism to adapt itself to the existing environment or to transform the environment itself. Dewey used these ideas on numerous occasions when he explained his views on education and ethics. Dewey was also a teacher for a number of years, so that influenced him to explore new methods of teaching. He had first-hand experience of what best helped students to learn and what the best learning environment would be. With these influences, John Dewey was able to create a unique philosophy that is still in use today.
John Dewey believed that arriving at one goal is the starting point to another. This statement means that you should always have a goal in life, one after another. We agree with this statement because we think that you should always have goals. You should always examine your life to see if it is going in the right direction. If your life is not going in the right direction set a goal that will help you solve the problem, and try to make your life better. If you strive to achieve that goal, then it will be achieved.
John Dewey, one of the founders of Instrumentalism, died on June 1, 1952 after 92 years of sharing his beliefs on pragmatism and ethics with the world. He wrote many books revolving around pragmatism. He founded a school for young children and he made contributions to the philosophical world. Dewey accomplished many things that inspired other philosophers that came after him. He was a well respected man in his time and his philosophy greatly influences life today on a daily basis. Goal setting as practiced today on a is an example of that. His support and study of the philosophy of the arts may be one of the reasons why there is art in schools today.
we are only in seventh grade can you believe that we hve to write on him

Nicholas

Philosophy , ,