Descartes - A Piece of Wax Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Descartes - A Piece of Wax - Essay Example There are many principles which create certain thought which will lead us to conclude something that is usually consistent and powerful. We guide our lives by these thoughts and ideas. And much of this comes about because of our faculties, which allows us to sense things in different magnitudes. Our five senses can lead us to believe in things that may fail us. During Descartes’ second meditation, he decides that everything he sees is not really there. What our eyes perceive may be a result of what the world has labeled to be real. But what our minds observe, gives us greater insight into the world around us. II. Our Mind’s Observations The observation of the world around Descartes has caused him to take a step back and view his life in a different manner. He creates doubt within his own mind because without doubt, he holds that one is naive in their thinking. Doubt allows for reflection and with reflection comes the knowledge of what needs to improve and how one may go about with the improvement. Without doubt, life in itself is blissful. The doubt that Descartes experiences is so powerful that he feels he can’t just forget what he is thinking. He has to act upon this new found doubt and get to the root of the problem. III. Doubt and Certainty For Descartes, the root of the problem is not doubt. Part of Descartes meditation lends closer towards finding out what is being doubted and he states that he will not rest until his longing to find what is certain is satisfied. He is so adamant to find a solution that he is willing to compromise. That compromise is him relinquishing all rights to finding what is certain and being ok with the fact that nothing may be certain in the end. Certainty is not guaranteed. In much of Descartes writings he makes arguments that cause one to think about their existence, the purpose of their existence and the end result. Observing a piece of wax lends towards his argument on the fact that the mind is more certai nly known than the body due to perception. He says that all knowledge of external objects, including his body, could be false as a result of a demon. However, the idea that his mind exists cannot be a deception because his nature is not just made up of the body but also of a thinking thing. He says that even the corporal objects such as his own body is known more distinctly through the mind due to how the mind perceives what is in front of it. IV. Perception’s Relativity Perception is key to knowledge. Such is the idea of wax that Descartes was vehemently focusing on during his second meditation. As the wax melts, he believes that our minds begin to perceive its matter differently. Our mind realizes that the purpose of the wax has changed and can no longer be used in the way that the world has previously dictated. The properties create a new and yet meaningful definition that only our intellect can comprehend. Though the property of the wax may have changed, it now lends to a new purpose but keeps the same name. Our minds know and understand that regardless of the property the wax may be in during a particular state, it still is and will always be a piece of wax. Descartes claims that we know this

Online vs. traditional classes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Online vs. traditional classes - Essay Example According to Parker, around 77% of the universities they surveyed were offering at least some form of online courses (Parker 1). Online classes have several benefits to offer as compared to traditional classes. These benefits include: increased accessibility, decrease in educational gap and ease of gaining education. Online education has increased the accessibility of education. When only traditional classroom style education was available a lot of individuals used to fail to get themselves enrolled in universities that they always wanted to. This was because these educational institutes had limited amount of seats available and because several individuals did not have the funding required to attend classes in these educational institutes. Online education does not require seats and does not require an individual to be physically available in a setting to gain education. Due to this people have started gaining online education in universities of their choice at a lower cost. Online education has even helped in decreasing the educational gap. The problem with traditional classroom education was that it was only accessible for those who belonged to families who can afford to get their children enrolled in the best universities by paying for their travelling costs and tuition fee. Due to this people living in developing nations and poorer regions of the world used to fail to gain education in the best universities around the world. This led to an increase in the gap between quality and quantity of education being obtained by rich and the poor. Online education is quite inexpensive and does not need huge amount of funds for travelling from one region to another and this enables the poor to attain education thus leading to a decrease in the gap of quality and quantity of education being obtained by rich and poor. Online education provides students with the ease of gaining education. Adults who work used to fail to gain education in physical classroom because

Understanding If The Iraq Wars Justified Politics Essay

Understanding If The Iraq Wars Justified Politics Essay The American war campaign against the military troops of Iraq began on 20th March 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by international troops led by United States of America and the United Kingdom. Then, the governments of the United States and United Kingdom and other European countries claimed that the possession of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq posed a threat to the international security. This assertion informed the invasion of Saddam Husseins Iraq by the United States and its allies. This invasion has proven to be an unjustified act after it was confirmed that the regime of Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. In fact it was alleged that Saddam Hussein only bragged of possessing weapons of mass destruction so he could prevent the neighbouring Iran from ever considering invading his country. Why would the United States invade Saddam Husseins Iraq instead of going after the Taliban and the Al Qaeda terrorists groups? After the 2001 September 11 terrorist attacks, the Al Qaeda extremists admitted to being responsible for the bombings and Osama Bin Laden himself admitted to giving the directive for the bombing. It was only logical that the United States of America would pursue the extremists groups directly and swiftly. However, President Bushs advisers were wrong in going after Saddam Hussein instead of Osama Bin Laden. By then, Osama was still at large and offering more threats and so it would have been easier to find him and bring him to book for atrocious mass killing, than going against Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein in fact had no direct ties to the Al Qaeda or Taliban. The war in Iraq was pushed by the general objective of making the world a better place. The objective of the war was to convey a warning to other axis of evil nations to stop their uranium enrichment programs. The United States feared that if the Islamic Republic of Iraq enriched itself with uranium, this would spark a nuclear arms race. President George W Bush coined the term axis of evil, in January 2002 State of the Union Address in an apparent reference to nations that were sympathetic to the Al Qaeda terrorist group and other international terrorist organizations. After that address, the United States embarked on a war campaign that as at 22 August this year has cost the administration 743 billion dollars  [1]  . The cost of the war has been especially difficult to manage given the existent global economic climate. The effect of the Iraq war on the economy needs no advertising. The United States spends at least 200 million dollars on the Iraq war daily. In 2002, when President George W. Bushs economic adviser Larry Lindsey inferred that the war would cost approximately 200 billion dollars in the long run, people thought he had overestimated the costs. It is now clear that his estimation was a gross underestimation. The Iraq war has costs the United States taxpayer a whooping 730 billion dollars as at August 2010. President Bushs economical advisers anticipated a quick and reasonably inexpensive war, but instead the war dragged on and resulted in the deployment of more than 125,000 American soldiers. These American soldiers need food, shelter and at time entertainment and the only place they can derive these human wants is from Iraq. These soldiers have therefore been supplied by products made in Iraq and this has only helped build the Iraq economy while the United States economy continues to la nguish in budget deficits. Sustaining the large troop base in Iraq has meant the United States spent more and thereby accruing more debts. The major casualties of the Iraq war have been the innocent civilians caught in the cross fire between American forces and its allies against the insurgent. Data available indicating the death toll from the invasion is varied, but critically indicting of the war. Different groups have given different information regarding the actual or even projected figure of Iraqi casualties. The Associated Press gave its figure of civilian casualties at approximately 110, 500 deaths as at April of last year. Another organization called the Iraq Body Count, which collects a database of Iraqi civilian casualties, released a report in April this year indicating that around 105, 000 innocent residents lost their lives from the American offensive  [2]  . War, if absolutely necessary, is meant to deliver humans from suffering and not create suffering instead. The staggering number of civilian casualties makes the war in Iraq more harmful than helpful. This war has ravaged family units, displaced per sons from their homes and left millions living in perpetual fear of imminent death. In the aftermath of the war, America attempted to assist Iraq in managing their country and fighting insurgents, but this caused more harm than good to the general stability of the United States. There are growing doubts in the mainstream America about the administrations capability of winning the war. It is clearly known that the United States of America miserably failed in the Vietnam War three decades ago, and that severely affected the confidence the Americans had on their government ability to successfully complete an overseas mission. The Iraq war is having similar effects on the American psyche. Vietnam made Americans to doubt the governments stand on issues of foreign policy. This confidence by the citizens is further is crushed by realization that their government could wage war on a country based on false intelligence reports  [3]  . When the environmental or ecological effects of the war are assessed, more harm can be seen. The weapons used excreted chemical substances that polluted air, soil and water. These substances contained toxic materials such as hydrochloric acid, asbestos, dioxins and other harmful metals. This polluted the soil as the uranium released by combat troops killed some plant species. During the shock and awe, in the initial launch of attacks, there was thermal radiation excreted by heavy artillery. This thermal radiation caused death by ionising the body of Iraq civilians and American soldiers. In the course of the protracted war, many innocent civilians and soldiers suffered mechanical injuries that left them without limbs. A lot of complications arose due to the mechanical and ionising radiation such as infertility, blood disorders like blood cancer, and cataracts formation. It caused adverse effects on body organs and tissues formation i.e. radiation poisoning. It also caused genetic effe cts and birth defects that might subsequently be passed from current Iraq generation to the next generations. Pressure from heavy artillery employed in the war meant Iraqi civilians chances of survival depended on buildings they were staying in as the buildings can survive 0.8 bar of the heavy blasts, while a human can only withstand 2.0 bar of blast. The increased pressure caused by the blast caused burns of different types to the innocent casualties of the war. Examples are thermal burns from infrared radiation, beta burns from beta radiation and gamma burns from gamma radiation. Radiation also caused hair loss, other effects on the skin like ulceration, itching, flaking, inflammation and blistering. The war in Iraq is associated with other grave ills in the society. There has been significant movement of refugee populations from Iraq to its neighbouring countries of Syria and Jordan. The war has intensified terrorism across the borders of Syria-Iraq and Jordan-Iraq instead of curtailing it. The overthrowing of Saddam Hussein from the Iraqi presidency has intensified separatism in the country and propelled sectarian violence pitting the Sunni and Shiite Muslims to another level. Prior to invasion of Iraq, Saddam had managed to keep the two factions in harmonious coexistence. With the withdrawal of the allied forces from Iraq, it will be interesting to see whether the sectarian violence, transnational criminal activities in the Middle East and the cross-border terrorism will subside or intensify. A safe bet would be on deterioration of stability and security standards. The seven year war in Iraq has damaged the overall credibility of the United States as a world leader. Images of roadside civilian bombings, video footages of American soldiers torturing suspected terrorists and shipment of the suspected terrorist to Guantanamo bay has compounded the already bad image of the United States abroad. It can be recalled that the United States made a unilateral Iraqi invasion decision, in total disregard of the United Security Council opposition to the war and this has installed the perception of arrogance from the Americans in dealing with diplomatic issues  [4]  . These and other reasons make the United States Iraq war completely unjustified.

Creative People Essay -- Analysis, Dahlén

Dahlà ©n (2008) illustrates creative people as being distinguished by five paradoxes. These paradoxes states that: creative people are characterized by a large measure of conventionality and rebelliousness; creative people make extensive use of both divergent and convergent thinking; creative people are characterized by the fact that they have both abundant energy and a great need for relaxation; creative people is the combination of humility and pride; and creative people are to a great extent both introverted and extroverted (Dahlà ©n, 2008). Change and the accompanying uncertainty throw off ones equilibrium, yet it is these fluctuations, disturbances, and imbalances that are the primary sources of creativity. When considering the paradoxes presented by Dahlà ©n (2008) this writer is a creative person. Creativity is an aspect of human personality and a component of human development. This writer is very interested in coming up with new ideas or enhancing processes that are no longer effective. For example, this writer was recently asked by a manager in the organization, to look at ways the reporting process for the division could be enhanced to reduce the amount of time a State has to wait for a final report after an audit has been conducted. The normal timeframes were taking up to 18 months to produce a final audit report. By being a divergent thinker, this writer was able to look at all the factors and individuals involved in the report writing process and connect them to the end product to reduce the timeframe to 184 days. Dahlà ©n (2008) considers only one half of creative thinking as changing one’s thought process, and the other half is trying to combine ideas into creative results (p. 98). Creativity is the driving ... ...igh (Saednejad, 2008). In an educational organization thinking inside the box is the first step to creative thinking. In an educational setting it is critical to teach a child to think inside the box to avoid them from becoming critical of everything they encounter. It is important for children to learn the facts before they form their own opinion. Conclusion In conclusion, creative thinking is important for innovation. Creative thinking in business is widely viewed as a way to solve complex problems for the benefit of the organization. Change and the accompanying uncertainty throw off ones equilibrium, yet it is these fluctuations, disturbances, and imbalances that are the primary sources of creativity. Investment in creativity gives a company considerably more security than, for example, its assets, age, liquidity, growth or financial strategy.

Essay on Recession

Downturns are stressful and typically increase people's desire for simplicity. (Flatters and Wolcott, 2009, up. 3). Credit crunch has affected consumers massively. Consumers have to think where they need to shop and what they need to look for to avoid struggles during recession. Things Like food, bills, and mortgage have to be prioritize Instead of buying new house, furniture, going on holiday, spending money on social activities or buying trendy clothing. During recession consumers have to make sure that they find the products for the money they pay.Brand names are getting less important for people as their priorities are different this tough time. Customers are more likely to shop for clothes in supermarket now instead of designer clothing as they have to think about the future living and getting bargains is essential to survive. A lot of consumers changed the way they shop and where they shop. People started looking for bargains and they didn't care which shops offered them as lon g as It was the best deal. In other hand, a lot of consumers remained within their favorite shops.Rust and Cohort, (1993), tied In McCormick (2002,p. 1 1 2) found that loyal shoppers are more likely to ‘forgive' occasional service failures and the inertia factor within loyalty makes them less likely to switch stores. A lot of people don't like change and staying loyal is important for them as well as for the company. Conclusion Downturn has influenced consumer in different ways. Consumer had to change their lifestyle and adapt to the changes, but now people think about their future strongly avoiding the struggles created by recession.

Five methods of Departmentalization Essay

Essay Topic â€Å"What five methods have traditionally been used to departmentalize work and worker? Give one advantage and one disadvantage of each. Provide an example of functional departmentalization at your University and using the definitions in your textbook explain why it is suitable example. (Chapter 9)† In any size of the organization or complexity workplace, organizational structures are very important factors that the businesses must have, so the employee will know their position, their responsibilities and tasks. To develop and improve organization performance, the organization can use various structural can take on, however the organization need to find the best organisational structure that depends on many factors including the work, products or services, the size of the employee, geographic and target market (demographic customer’s base). The following section provides details of the five methods have traditionally been used to departmentalize employee and jobs, also advantage and disadvantage each of the methods. Traditional organizational structures are connections among these positions are demonstrated in an organisational Chart which will show how management is organized ‘vertical and horizontal configuration of departments, authority and job within a companyà ¢â‚¬â„¢ (Williams & McWilliams 2010, p.175) each of department has a manager, who runs day- to- day operations and ultimately report to the CEO, however this traditional model is common use in all church, government and military organization, because these organizations are stable, cannot respond to change and slow to act. For example every soldiers answer to his commanding officer, while the president is at the top of the chain as command-in-chief. Departmentalization is ‘the subdivision of work is the basic meaning of â€Å"forms†. The multidivisional form is defined as decentralized management structure; organized into products divisions, each division containing a unitary structure; and a central office to make to strategic decisions.’ (P. James L. 1997) generally the basic decisions that managers have to make as they develop a traditional organizational structure are using the five traditional methods of functional, product, customer, geographic and matrix departmentalization. Which mean two or more people working together as a group to complete a specific task, by divided the group to work in different departmentalization, to help achieve the  organization objectives and goals. However ‘Determining the functions to be performed involves consideration of division of labour,’ (P. Montanna &B. Charnov, 1993, p. 1) and depending on the size of the grouping that managers supervise. The degree of decision-making authority is centralization and usually were made by the top management of the highest vertically structures hierarchy. This section is additional detail and description of five methods has been used traditionally to departmentalization. Functional departmentalization: group of employee and job based on work performance, example finance and accounting, marketing and sale, human resource and administration and technical and operating. For another example of Functional departmentalization at Victoria University is Academic Support and Development because this department can students with University assessment tasks such as writing skills, reference skills, online language translator and providing expert support the student academic success and retention across the university. The advantage of functional departmentalization is efficiency of work and is to be done by specialist skills and high qualified. The disadvantage is inflexibility of work because the stuff only is qualifies for one specialisation. Products departmentalization: group of employee and work for producing major product or services area in the organization or company. Example David Jones, women’s clothing, men’s clothing, home and food. The advantage of the product departmentalization is that increases accountability for product performance and allow manager and employee work in one area of expertise. The disadvantage is the challenge of coordinating across different product departments. Customer departmentalization: group of employee and work into particular responsibility based on customer’s problem and need. Example: government, education, health, wholesale or retail. The advantage is focused on customer need rather than on products or business function. The disadvantage customer departmentalization is the satisfaction or feedback from customer is challenging of coordinating across different customer departments. Geographic Departmentalization: groups of employee and work ‘into separate units responsible for doing business in particular geographic area’ (Williams & McWilliams 2010, p.180). Example North, South, West, East). The advantage of geographic departmentalization is face to face communication between the service provider and service receiver. The  disadvantage is required more human capital and the control cannot exercise effectively. Matrix departmentalization: a combined of one or two group form of departmentalization are used together based on particular project, most often are from product and functional departmentalization working together. The advantage of matrix departmentalization is allowing the organization to efficiently manage large, complex tasks and efficiency avoiding duplication. The disadvantage is requires a high level of management skill and can cause of conflict between bosses in departments. Through a different perspective on the issue can be seen by comparing between traditional model and modern model of the organizational structures, the traditional of organizational structures is illustrated as have effectiveness and efficiency of products or services more than modern organizational structures. Because of emphasis on job specialization, highly performed on definite procedures and policy in the organization that effective work and worker, also the decentralization ‘is the location of most authority at the upper levels of the organization. In a centralized organization, manager makes the most decision, even the relatively small one’ (Williams & McWilliams 2010, p.185) which help and improve the organization achieve their objectives and goals are better and quicker than apply on modern organizational structures. For the modern or twentieth c entury organizational structures is redesigning of making objective and goals setting process is through empower worker. According to(Williams & McWilliams 2010, p.185) Empower worker means’ permanently passing decision –making authority and responsibility from managers to workers by giving them the information and resources they need to make and carry out good decisions’. Which means all the process need to be share to every levels and decentralized authority is allowing a significant amount of worker within the organization make the decision necessary to solve the problem. In conclusion the traditional organizational structures has five methods been used to departmentalizing work and workers such as the work Functional performs, the Product or Service offered, the target Customer or client, the Geographic region covered and the Matrix project that is combine or form two or more departmentalization to work together. These methods are used to in organization which effect work and worker with the best contribute to accomplishment organization’s objectives and goals. Reference list Brews. P.J & Tucci. C. L, 2004, ‘exploring the structural effect of internetworking’, strategic management journal, vol. 25. No. 5, pp. 429-451 Woll .L.F.K & Moliance. M, 2013’do organizational structure, ‘work environment and gender matter?’ creatively and implementations of new ideas, international journal of gender and entrepreneurship, vol. 5. No.3. pp. 298-315 Dufty.N, 1996, ‘ a note on departmentalization in an institute of technology’, journal of education administration, vol. 4. No. 1, pp. 32-48 Williams. C & McWilliams. A, 2010, MGMT 1st Asian Pacific Edition, Cengage Learning Australia Pty, South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Price. L. J, 1997, ‘handbook of organization measurement’, international journal of Manpower, vol. 18 Iss 4/5/6 pp.305-558 P. Montanna & B. Charnov, 1993, ‘chapter 11: organizational structures: concepts and formats’, management: A streamlined course for students & business people . (Hauppauge, New York: Barron’s Business Reviewed Series), pp. 155-169