Key elements from the philosophies of Hegel and Husserl Essay

Key elements from the philosophies of Hegel and Husserl - Essay Example According to existentialism, existence comes before the essence of life. Hegel was also of the same opinion albeit he put forth certain conditions or situations when human beings have this kind of free will. According to his ‘Philosophy of Right’, human beings are free to act or decide for themselves only if they are part of any particular system or area concerning the free will. According to Hegel, freedom should not be linked with arbitrariness (doing whatever one pleases). Hegel believes that, â€Å"We are free only when we overcome ‘particularity’ and act ‘universally’ or ‘objectively’, according to the concept of the will† (Wood, 2003). Usually people misinterpret the meaning of freedom; they feel that freedom means nonexistence of hurdles in doing anything of one’s choice. But when we view it with practicality, the situation is somewhat different. on the contrary, Hegel feels that human beings cannot be said to b e free â€Å"unless social institutions provide considerable scope and protection for arbitrary freedom† (Woods, 2003). Another element of Hegel’s philosophy relates to the civil society. Hegel says that human beings are free to decide what work they choose for their livelihood but they cannot completely deny the fact that their actions will not affect the society. It should be a give and take system where individuals contribute towards the society and in turn the society looks after the broader interests of all human beings. Any work that we do indirectly helps the society as a whole; â€Å"As members of this society, individuals have the duty to support themselves through labor which benefits the whole, while civil society as a whole owes each individual the opportunity to labor in a way which provides a secure, respected and self-fulfilling mode of life† (Woods, 2003). Philosophy of Phenomenology Edmund Husserl was the founded the ‘Philosophy of Phenome nology’. He was a mathematician and all his anticipations and explanations were based on mathematic calculations or to be more precise, the inferential system. The motive of Husserl’s Theory of Phenomenology, â€Å"is to study the units of consciousness that the respective speaker presents himself as having – that he gives voice to – in expressing the proposition in question (for instance, while writing a mathematical textbook or giving a lecture)† (Beyer, 2011). Husserl relates the actions of human beings to their perceptions. According to him, it is quite possible that while performing any action, a person is hallucinating. Means that he/she may think he/she is being watched while doing the act. Also, â€Å"from a first-person point of view, one cannot, of course, decide whether in a case of what one takes to be, say, an act of perception one is currently performing, there actually is an object that one is perceptually confronted with† (Be yer, 2011). In Tel Asiado’s words Husserl’s philosophy claims that ‘consciousness is ‘directedness towards an object.’ The mental state and the object of the state exist together in consciousness without implying that there is any ‘material’ object answering to the call† (Asiado, 2009). Husserl’s apprehensions are more towards the doubts on the ‘information about self’ rather than the ‘information about things’. Husserl’s philosophy can be summarized to be â€Å"as both an early direct reference theorist (headword:

U.S. & Japan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

U.S. & Japan - Essay Example Indeed, the nature and outcome of warfare, as of any human endeavor, are largely dependent on the individual talents and cumulative experiences of the people who engage in it. To study the material and technological aspects of modern warfare to the exclusion of its emotional, spiritual, and intellectual elements is foolish. The very existence of war requires that one possess not only the physical means to sustain an armed struggle but a mentality that predisposes one to initiate it or persevere in it. It follows, then, that hostilities cease when one of these two essential elements has been destroyed--when one combatant no longer possesses either the physical means or the psychological will to carry on the fight. What were the dominant ideologies and institutions of international politics of the twentieth century? At the dawn of the twenty-first century, this seems a particularly appropriate question to ask. What distinguished them, what were their limitations, what was their potenti al, and what prospects do they hold for the new millennium? The purpose of combat operations is to physically destroy the enemy's physical and material ability to make war. The objective of psychological operations is to erode his will to continue the fight.John W. Dower's War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon, 1986) is a superb analysis of the impact of cultural stereotypes and racism on the conduct of the war in the Pacific. 1 John W. Dower assesses the impact of racial hatred, cultural stereotypes, and acid psychological factors on the conduct of the Pacific War. Yet his treatment of wartime atrocities, Japanese adherence to "death before dishonor," and Americans "obsessed with the task of slaughter" reveals only part of the story. Although he refers to the surrender of demoralized Japanese soldiers, the subject is peripheral to his work. This is understandable given his focus, yet one is left with a very dear impression that such occurrences were extraordinarily rare and insignificant events. More problematic is Dower's assertion that Americans in decision-making positions were so singularly unimpressed with the idea of waging a serious propaganda campaign against the Japanese that "such ideas had little impact." In fact, this is not the case. Psywar was not an afterthought on the part of Allied military commanders, nor was it always perceived as some "impractical plaything of effete civilians."2 In their attempts to demoralize Japanese troops Allied propagandists in the Southwest Pacific alone disseminated nearly 400 million propaganda leaflets and witnessed the capture of approximately 19,500 Japanese prisoners. The dearth of historical inquiry into the conduct of psywar against the Japanese, likely results from assumptions that deserve closer scrutiny. One such assumption seems to be that psywar could not have been effective against an enemy so thoroughly indoctrinated in a tradition that emphasized "death before dishonor" and the supreme virtues of loyalty to the emperor, unquestioning obedience to one's superiors, and self-sacrifice in the service of the nation. To be sure, soldiers in the IJA were thoroughly imbued with these values. But just as it did not prevent them from experiencing defeat on the battlefield, military indoctrination did not safeguard the emperor's soldiers from the ill effects of demoralization. The evidence shows that as the war progressed and Allied military successes mounted, morale among Japanese combatants markedly declined and Japanese soldiers became increasingly susceptible to the Allied war of words. Pacific War narratives provide graphic images of the brutal fighting in the Pacific, the atrocities committed by combatants, and the fight-to-the-death mentality that dominated among all fighting men in what has been characterized as a savage race war.