Honor and Dueling :: European Europe History

Honor and Dueling A duel was a prearranged combat with lethal weapons between two people, usually taking place under formal arrangements. Each side had a witness, called seconds. The usual cause of a duel is an insult given by one person to the other or over a question of honor. The challenged person has the right to set the place, time, and weapons. Duels have generally been fought early in the morning in secluded places. (Encarta "Duel") Dueling to avenge one's honor has never been legal, dueling has been marked by laws opposing it. The practice became popular in Europe after the famous challenge between King Charles V of Spain and Francis I of France. When war was declared on Spain in 1528 by Francis, he annulled the treaty between the two countries, Francis was challenged to a duel after being accused of ungentlemanly conduct by the Spanish ruler. The duel never did take place because making arrangements was to difficult, but this incident influenced the manners of Europeans so that gentlemen everywhere thought they were entitled to avenge slights on their honor by having similar challenges. (Encarta "Duel") Duels involving honor were so prevalent in France that Charles IX issued an ordinance in 1566 that was death to anyone participating in a duel. This became a model for later edicts against dueling. Dueling however did survive longer than monarchy in France. Dueling became a technique for resolving political disputes. (Britannica "Duel) The duel was intensely popular in England, during Restoration. Legislation during the 17th century had little effect on suppressing the practice. The English Common Law declares that killing in a duel to be held as murder, but juries rarely convicted in cases of dueling until the custom had ceased to be popular during the reign of Queen Victoria. (Encarta "Duel") The earliest form of dueling was the judicial duel or trial by battle. The judicial duel was established because solemn affirmation, or swearing of oaths, in legal arguments had led to extensive perjury and the ordeal has too much of a chance of being manipulated by the priests. If one man declares before a judge that his opponent was guilty of a crime and the accused said that his accuser is lying, the judge would order the two to meet in a duel. The judge then stipulated the conditions as to the place, time, and weapons. The combatants had to guarantee their participation by throwing down a gauntlet and his opponent accepted by picking it up.

A Reflection on Innatism: Revisiting Locke and Leibniz

Locke was clear about his philosophy- that there is no rational intuition that subjects an individual to a multitude of ideas which he he/she hasn’t encountered through experience yet. Our mind is a tabula rasa in contrast to what Descartes might have presumed to be preconditioned by some divinity or what was called as having innate ideas.Locke strongly feels that external source such as sensation from experience molds our thoughts. Although this essay may not be able to prove scientifically the validity of Locke’s contention, at least by revisiting his philosophical explanation, one is led to rethink any prior belief which either favors or opposes him; or begin a journey of reflection which would satisfy at the very least, our thirst for reason.Innatism disagrees with early theorists such as Locke by arguing that humans have innate knowledge or have access to ideas, which are inborn like those that we conceive as true because they are self-evident without the need of s ome external source to rely on. Innatism proponents refer to ideas we have known beyond experience such as those acquired through transcendental possibilities, notions of good and evil or morals, ethical truths, and nature of causality.This is similar to Plato’s theory of knowledge of the forms; that we already have gained knowledge of things before we are born and we only tend to remember them as we experience life (Anamnesis). He showed this in Meno, when Socrates led a boy to explain something he has not been taught or has not learned yet but nonetheless was able to arrive at. Is it possible for humans to have known anything without having learned it?Do we truly have knowledge in our subconscious that will soon be revealed when reminded or called for? Locke thinks there is a process in the formation of ideas among mankind. He further explained his case in his â€Å"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.† More or less, the conflict is whether or not ideas are deriv ed from experience and its sensation or pure reason.First, should there be ideas derived from pure reason, then it should result to a universality of ideas or the so-called universal assent. For while the proponents of innate ideas reason that the nature of ideas held true by everyone is innate, Locke questions the existence of ideas which however are universally accepted are not necessarily innate unless there was no other way for it to be established. In the first place, Locke is not comfortable with the idea of universality.Morality and ethics are dependent on cultures and norms. Besides, the acceptance of innate ideas might challenge a person’s capacity to retain them since there are so many ideas to remember yet the brain could only afford to store enough. There will certainly be issues of which universal ideas and how many of them do we innately possess?As objection to Locke’s arguments, supporters of innatism purport the need for Reason to discover the innate id eas. However to Locke, this is a manifestation of self-contradiction since the primary argument of the opponent is- that innate ideas do not need external source for confirmation. Better yet, are the experiences that provoke remembrance of the innate ideas necessarily the same as well?On a personal note, Locke’s contenders must be delineating between innate ideas, which are the harbinger of Pure Reason therefore making them innate as well and ideas which, out of our experiences as we grow, are either modified and are potentially creating new forms of reason nevertheless corrupted. For instance, even if we think of killing other people as innately immoral, the formation of new cultures and new belief systems may transform this otherwise like when it becomes acceptable in political terms, (i.e. war against terrorism) or anthropological terms (i.e. cannibalism).This is probably why they adhere to Pure Reason- that which is uncorrupted by society’s development and change. Locke could challenge this by saying that there will emerge to be better societies like those which are deviant from modernity or that children must be more expert than adults in conceiving innate ideas. Thus, in discussions of origin of ideas, adherents of innate ideas are on the losing end.How then are ideas or knowledge created? This is somehow presented in Locke’s counterargument on universal assent- such that if ideas are innate, they have to be assented to universally. This calls for differences in ideas that are innate in one person against another. But the need for them to be assented to suggests that there are no innate ideas. People are prone to disagreements and could this be explained by the innateness of the ideas or of their inherent differences?It seems like Locke would rather explain this through varying capacities of people to understand and react to experiences which we encounter or have encountered in the past hence making us susceptible to perceiving disti nct opinions. Knowledge is a result of this interaction among people and whichever prevails is the one, which is rendered more reasonable than the other as a result of more coherent experiences.

The Pianist By Roman Polanski - 1147 Words

Fours texts Blackadder goodbyeee (visual) The pianist (visual) Tilbury Speech (poem) American sniper (visual) War doesn t determine who s right, it only determines who s left, however, war can mean different things to different people in some examples, it may be heroic to fight for your country where for others it is devastating and dehumanising. The films such as The Pianist by Roman Polanski to Blackadder Goodbyeee demonstrate how the war dehumanises people while the American sniper and Dulcie et show that war can be heroic and great to fight for your country. Which signifies that the motives you have for fighting a war determines your attitude towards it. American sniper is a film by Clint Eastwood it is an inspirational film, which shows the behind the scenes of war and shows how he acts during war and how he reacts to it afterwards we see Chris Kyle and during the war and he acts excited and brave how he can take a man s life and not care for what he is doing. However, it is just an act he puts on to look tough in front of his fellow soldiers, and when he just says that he is doing his job and he isn’t fazed by the lives he has ended but in reality he is sinking into depression. When Chris Kyle’s wife makes him go to the counsellor to talk about his problems he only tells the counselor that he isn t worried about the amount of lives he has taken, but more about the lives he could have saved by killing other Iraqis, this may be partially true but he is alsoShow MoreRelatedThe Pianist By Roman Polanski Essay2529 Words   |  11 Pagesoccurred other than a film because it has the power to convey emotions with the use of pictures that cause strong emotions of empathy towards Jews. A film that successfully captures these events is The Pianist by Roman Polanski, which took place from the years 1939-1945. It was produced by Roman Polanski, Robert Benmussa, and Alain Sarde in 2002. 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