Within Dostoyevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor and Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener are expressive figures facing problems of an existential nature. Consumed by an inability to find purpose in life‚ their actions and reactions become characterized by absurd and illogical streaks. The characters begin to align with the ideas surrounding existentialism‚ most notably with the “sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world." As they attempt to understand
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“The Grand Inquisitor” is one of the hardest chapters to read in the novel‚ in it the existence of God is affirmed by Ivan only to ask why if he exists and created man‚ he watches from afar as children are tortured‚ as mankind is mislead‚ through its own constructs and freedoms given through the rejection of the three deadly temptations. Here the question of whether God truly loves mankind is posed by implying‚ if God loves humans why does he let “turmoil‚ confusion and unhappiness continue‚ for
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In 1880‚ 19th century writer Fyodor Dostoevsky published one of the most famous novels in world literature called The Brothers Karamazov. Many honor this work as a representation of humanity’s struggles and sins‚ but Dostoevsky also incorporates what he believed to be the most fundamental issues of his time. His works are formed in the context of a religious consciousness that hold criticisms in direct relation to Russia’s affiliation with the West‚ as well as the analysis of Orthodox culture. Enlisting
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The pawnbroker’s carnivalesque laughter is Raskolnikov’s unconsciousness demonstrating his defeat and making him face it. Carnivalesque laughter can also been seen with Grushenka in The Brothers Karamazov. Katerina Ivanovna invites Alyosha to visit her at her house and wants to be Alyosha’s friend. She does not want Alyosha to feel uncomfortable; therefore‚ she invites Grushenka to also visit. During the visit‚ Grushenka tells Katerina that she will
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While writing The Ego and the Id in 1923‚ Sigmund Freud was influenced by the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky‚ which led him to theorize that the human mind is composed of three parts: the id‚ ego‚ and superego. The id is the portion of the unconscious that is the source of impulsive and childlike drives. By seeking immediate gratification and pleasure‚ the id operates on the “pleasure principle” (McLeod). Opposite to the id‚ the superego is the “parent portion of the psyche‚” which operates on what seems
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1. Compare and contrast the views of John Searle and Rene Descartes on dualism. John Searle and Rene Descartes both had opinions on dualism. John believe different aspects like mental and physical both are one substance. Rene‚ on the other hand‚ believes two different substances like mental and physical are different things. Rene even talked about how thoughts and feelings that are nonmaterial exists in material place. 2. Compare and contrast the views of George Berkeley and Thomas Hobbes on the
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Take Home Exam Section 1 1. It’s a bird…It’s a plane…It’s the Übermensch! “The Übermensch? Doesn’t it go It’s a bird…It’s a plane…It’s Superman?” one might be asking. However‚ if one were to take a direct German translation of Übermensch‚ the definitions that would come up would include‚ Superman‚ Overman‚ Overhuman and Above-Human. If we closely exam the criteria to become the Übermensch as Nietzsche has laid out for us through Thus Spoke Zarathustra and the modern day fictional Superman‚ there
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In the beginning‚ God created the heaven‚ the angels‚ and the earth. He created the birds of the air and the beasts of the land‚ and he looked at his creation and he saw that it was good. And then god created man‚ which ever since has widely been regarded as a bad move. The angel Lucifer‚ God’s favourite then started becoming too proud. Lucifer and a third of the angels revolted against God. Afterwards he was cast down into Hell for his troubles. Most would say this is because Lucifer was evil
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end the question can always be asked: ‘is the end worth it?’ To put this another way‚ it is a question of whether God can be justified in creating a world which contains such an amount of gratuitous evil in order to attain certain goals. For Ivan Karamazov the answer is clearly no; no goal is so worth having that the torture and cruelty to children becomes justifiable. Another critic of Irenaeus was Dewi Zephaniah Phillips. He presented a similar challenge in The Problem of Evil and the Problem of
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The Theodicy Dilemma: Why doesn’t God Prevent Evil? The problem of reconciling an omnipotent‚ perfectly just‚ perfectly benevolent god with a world full of evil and suffering has plagued Christians since the beginning of religious thought. Atheists often site this paradox in order to demonstrate that such a god cannot exist and‚ therefore‚ that theism is an invalid position. Theodicy is a branch of philosophy that seeks to defend religion by reconciling the supposed existence of an omnipotent
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