The Metaphysics of Meaning and the Symbolism of Language :: Philosophy Communication Essays

The Metaphysics of Meaning and the Symbolism of Language "There are no facts, only interpretations" — Nachlass Friedrich Nietzsche In this essay, I shall expound the naà ¯ve view, or theory, of symbolism, which assumes, or argues, that in the symbolic system of language thoughts are expressed by words, and that words have meaning, thereof. I shall show that the naà ¯ve theory of symbolism is invalid, and offer an alternative view incorporating my own empirical theories of meaning and language. I shall also argue against the naà ¯ve view of such a relation as 'expression' in the context of a symbolic theory of language. I shall further assert that meaning cannot be a property of words, or any linguistic symbol. In naà ¯ve symbolism, 'expression' is the relation connecting thoughts and words, allowing us to compile phrases such as, 'thoughts and their expressions', where 'their' implies a possessive quality that thoughts and words share. Here, the words are possessed by the thoughts; words belong to thoughts, and have a causal relation. It is statements such as these that I will pay philosophical attention to. I shall be considering whether such a relationship is possible, how it comes about, and the logic of such a relation. I will show that there is no such causal relation, nor logically mutual dependence between thoughts and words. Further, I will argue it cannot be said, with any logical validity, that symbolism in language implies a possessive relation such as, 'thoughts and their words'. Thoughts are not in the possession of words, for this implies an illogical causal relation. The term 'expression', and all its conjugated forms, is bogus in the naà ¯ve position it plays between words and thoughts. There are thoughts, there are words, or symbols. However, the two are neither logically related, nor mutually dependent. The conclusion of this essay will be the argument, logically and philosophically defended that the game of language we all share in order to communicate and understand each other, is a guessing game. The thoughts of others cannot be known through language, only pointed to. Expressions are merely indicators of meaning. Understanding, in the generally accepted sense, never happens. Finally, a piece of speculation into the theory of language development. Much of our ability to understand and use language comes from the tools we attained in our formative years. One such tool was the copy-cat style of learning the empirical expressions.

The Godfather :: Film Review,Coppola, The Gangsters

Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972) is among the best films ever produced. Consistently ranked as one of the top three films by the American Film institute, this gangster film sits among the likes of Citizen Kane (1941), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and the more recent Schindler’s List (1993) (American). When it was released, The Godfather was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and won three: Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film was adapted from the best-selling novel, with the same name, by Mario Puzo (Mast & Kawin, 332). The film takes place in a ten-year span between 1945 and 1955. It follows the Sicilian family headed by Vito Corleone who is played by Marlon Brando; Corleone is also the godfather or head of the Corleone Crime Family. Coppola’s film is not the first big screen version of a gangster film: Scarface (1933), The Public Enemy (1931), and Little Caesar (1931) are all pre-production code gangster films, but American Movie Classics’ Tim Dirks believes The Godfather â€Å"reinvented the gangster genre† (Dirks). Still, The Godfather’s has many similarities to pre-production code gangster films especially with its use of violence, and its portrayal of corruption of both the gangsters and the ‘good guys.’ The gangster films of the 30s and 40s had all but disappeared until The Godfather revived the genre. These films were not new to Hollywood: The Public Enemy (1931), Little Caesar (1930), and Scarface (1932), but the production code put an end to the style of the early gangster classics. Two production code principles for films made during its time, 1934-1967, were that â€Å"No picture should lower the moral standards of those who see it†¦the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin† and â€Å"[l]aw [†¦] must not be belittled, ridiculed, nor must a sentiment be created against it† (The Production code). These principles along with the film noir era essentially ended the way gangster films were made. Following the enforcement of the code, the focus shifted from the gangsters to the ‘good guys’ (Dirks). David Stirritt, film critic for the Christian Science Monitor, says Coppola’s film â€Å"revived the ga ngster genre† (Dirks). This revival helped other gangster films to make it to the big screen: Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas (1991) and Casino (1995), and Mike Newell’s Donnie Brasco (1997). The similarities between The Godfather and early gangster films are evident when they are compared.

Family and the Polis Essays -- essays papers

Family and the Polis Family and the Polis: Two Very Different Ideals Sophocles wrote a play entitled Antigone. One of the main characters, Creon, is a king who is trying to rule in the best interests of his community. Aristophanes also wrote a play, Lysistrata, where his main character is trying to stop a war within her country, a war between Sparta and Athens. Lysistrata is the only one who succeeds. It is because she focuses on the family issues first. That is what is at the heart of what is best for all of the people of Greece. Antigone is about rights of family and the control of the polis, or the government. Antigone is a strong female character whose two brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, were killed by each other in a battle for the throne and power of the city. Polyneices’ body was left unburied and no one was allowed to bury it. Antigone wanted to respect her brother so she tried to go and bury him. Creon, the new king, was her uncle and she was engaged to marry his son. Creon told her that her brother’s body must remain above ground because of the dishonor that he brought upon himself when he murdered his own brother in a battle for power and for the blood that he spilled of his own countrymen. He was a traitor. He turned on the city he once ruled and fought and killed the very brother that he shared blood with. By law his body was to remain above ground for the birds and the beasts to pluck apart. Creon commanded: â€Å"I here proclaim to the city that this man/ shall no one honor w ith a grave and none shall mourn†. Polyneices wasn’t going to be given honor when his life didn’t merit any. Creon saw Polyneices as an exile and a destroyer of the city. He came and attacked the very land that was his own and the... ...oney had been spent, too many people had died. To many things had been forgotten about for the mere reason of war The woman wanted their men home and rightly so. The killing needed to stop and the men needed to come home and run the cities and the land once more. She wanted things back the way that they used to be. Her plans were successful. The war was able to stopped and the needless killing ended. The men returned home to their wives and families were reunited. Lysistrata and Creon wanted to help their communities in different ways. Only Lysistrata was triumphant in her plan. She started with her own family and then moved beyond that for all the women and the whole of Greece. Creon was thinking big and acting small. He was focusing on community and the government or the polis first of all and in doing that, he lost what is the most important issue, family.

Future Job

Just imagine this; you’re sitting in an extravagant, red chair surrounded by incredibly brilliant people like One Direction, Justin Timberlake and Taylor Swift; in a dress that was designed just for you, by Vera Wang herself. Suddenly, you are pulled back into reality as you hear your named being called as a spontaneous applause begins. You walk up to the stage as they play one of your recent hits that was sold out worldwide and you start to give your acceptance speech for winning a Grammy for Record of the Year!My dream job ever since I was little was to be a popular, legendary music artist. As nice as it sounds with money, popularity, and not to mention the thousands of fans, there have always been three key flaws of being a well-known singer; the no privacy, the work shift, and family. In the first place, becoming a celebrity, especially at a young age, would require accepting the fact that I would no longer have â€Å"alone time. † For instance, say I wanted to go o ut with my friends and have a good time.I would have simply one drink and the next day, Star magazine would accumulate rumors and it would be saying that I am an alcoholic, that my life is in chaos and I am getting drunk to compensate for this. Even working in the studio with another singer of the opposite gender and taking a lunch break together would be blown out of proportion. Correspondingly, if I was to be in a relationship, tabloids would be taking pictures of our every move and it would come out any way the paparazzi wanted the story to play out, for the enjoyment of others.It may even get to a point where if there was no interesting news at the moment, they could twist it so there would be a break up with the guy I was seeing. My private life would be public. No matter what was going on in my love life, the whole world would know. I could become an open matter for the world to judge. Consequently, the work hours may seem to be the equivalent with a majority of other jobs how ever, it comes with that and more.Knowing the music industry, I could be anywhere, possibly doing a world tour or maybe even an album promotion in LA, New York, etc. This requires a lot of adjustment to different time zones and studio work could possibly even call me to be there at six in the morning and not get out of there until later into the day. Exhaustion would be the highest factor in my life. After a while you could even get sick of it, mentally or physically. There would also be promoting the records and endorsements that would cause more inhumanly hours of work.Somehow I would likewise have to manage to fit in interviews and publicity stunts on top of all of that. Let’s not forget the myriads of charities that would be necessary for me to be getting involved in. Lastly, my family would be the third and probably leading flaw with my choice. In my life, my parents, my sisters, and all my loved ones have always been my first priority. I’m not saying that choosin g this occupation would make me lose contact with my relatives, but it would formulate a great impact on the amount of time I get with them.On the other hand, the normal holidays such as Christmas, New Year’s, and summer are a great time to get together with family but also at the same time, the perfect opportunity in a singer’s career to make public appearances. Generally speaking, the chance to grow into an immense star in the music world is wonderful but comparable to many things in life, as well comes with numerous drawbacks. Now, go back to that scene in your head where you’re just about to grasp that Grammy, all the hard work you ever did in your life leads up to this moment. As you accept that Grammy, you think to yourself, is this job the reason for your smile right now?

Object-oriented Programming and Data Member

Lab Task Q1: Create a class that includes a data member that holds a â€Å"serial number† for each object created from the class. That is, the first object created will be numbered 1, the second 2, and so on. To do this, you’ll need another data member that records a count of how many objects have been created so far. (This member should apply to the class as a whole; not to individual objects. What keyword specifies this? ) Then, as each object is created, its constructor can examine this count member variable to determine the appropriate serial number for the new object.Add a member function that permits an object to report its own serial number. Then write a main() program that creates three objects and queries each one about its serial number. They should respond I am object number 2, and so on. Use copy constructor for this task both deep and shallow copy. Q2: Create a class calculator. It would have two data members, both integer types. There would be four functio ns add(), sub(), mul() and div(). The mul() and div() functions would be friend functions. Create four objects of the class. Also use copy constructor both shallow and deep copy.There would be a static data member which would count the number of objects. Q3: Create a class GPACalculator. This class would have gpa, cgpa, sessionalMarks, midMarks and finalMarks data members. There would be two functions calculateGPA() and calculateCGPA(). calculateCGPA() would be friend function. You need to create an array of GPACalculator class. The array would be of 5. You also need to give the user option of whether he wants to calculate gpa or cgpa. The grades are as follows: 50 and 53 and 57 and 61 and 64 and 68 and 72 and 75 and 80 and 86 and

India 2014 Elections Essay

Congress had an emphatic victory in 2009 Lok Sabha elections. UPA-2 started on a high by winning almost full majority on its own. However, their second term has been marred with controversies and corruption allegations. Starting with Commonwealth Games scam, every few months saw a new scam coming out like Adarsh Society scam and the biggest of all, the 2G scam. Fuel and commodity prices have risen sharply in the past few years adding to the woes of common man. Crusade against black money and corruption by Anna Hazare and to some extent baba Ramdev has only added to the woes of Congress. But Congress is shrewd and knows politics quite well. They know that offense is the best way to defend. For every scam or corruption news that comes out, they bounce back with equally controversial news against rival parties. Their projection of Rahul Gandhi, who has not yet proved any political sense, as a Prime Ministerial candidate may help them in their campaign build up to 2014 polls. [pic][pic]M ain opposition party Bhartiya Janata Party was left down and out after the 2009 polls. BJP’s arch enemy is not Congress but BJP itself. It’s leaders have failed to capitalize on core issues of price rise and corruption against the Congress. They should have learned from how Congress and some smaller parties have been able to successfully use the anti-minority tag against the BJP for over two decades now. BJP has also lost a lot of mass appeal leaders over the years. Most popular elader in india Atal Behari Vajpayee has now retired from active politics. Charasmatic leader and face of modern India, Pramod Mahajan was killed in a tragic incident. Stalwarts like Govindacharya and Jaswant Singh were thrown out. Prime Ministerial candidate Murli Manohar Joshi has been made to sit on the sidelines with no influence on national level politics. L K Advani is close to retirement years and firebrand Sushma Swaraj hasn’t proved to be a winner yet. That leaves the party with only one leader of mass appeal, Narendra Modi, who may not yet be ready to leave Gujara t and join National level politics. Besides, everyone knows Congress will play the anti-minority tag aginst him quite well. BJP has also destroyed its chances by not forming strategic alliances with other parties in states. It used to ahve an allaince with AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, Mamata Banerjee’s TMC in West Bengal and BJD in Orissa, but they have all left BJP group now. BJP’s loss has been Congress’s gain. Third Front parties have been reduced to play a minority role at the center over the past few years. Leaders like Lalu Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Jayalalitha, Mayawati are no longer king makers. Most of them have been left with no option then to support the ruling Govt, in this case the Congress. Left Front has already become non-existent after the debacle in 2011 Assembly elections and it’d be highly unlikely that they’d make any comeback by 2014. FOr the past few years, most third Front allies have been hob-nobbing with the Congress, which raises doubts on their very existence. Third Front was formed to combat BJP as well as Congress, but if you are going to chose Congress after the polls every time, then won’t it better for people to vote for Congress directly? Third Front needs to get its priorities right and decide on thei future survival options, because as of now their future looks bleak. The Contenders for India Elections 2014: Though Congress may not admit it yet, but Manmohan Singh may be shown the door out, and Congress may prefer to field Rahul Gandhi as its Prime Ministerial candidate in 2014. it may be too ealryfor Rahul to lead the nation as he has not proven his political accumen yet, but after the negative reviews UPA-2 is gathering, Congress amy want to chnage Manmohan Singh. As for BJP, the choice may be between one last try for L K Advani and popular leader Narendra Modi.

Nonpoint Source Pollution

Nonpoint source pollution is land runoff from drainage, rain, and seepage and hydraulic modification. It is caused by rain or snow melt that moves through and over the ground. When the runoff moves, it collects and picks up manmade and natural pollutants and ends up spilling into lakes, rivers, streams, and coastal waters. Nonpoint source pollution can include things like motor oil, toxic chemicals, animal droppings, trash and even insecticides. Our drinking water needs to be protected. It takes the help of the community, public water systems and resource managers.We can do small things such as posting signs in our community to let others know that any pollution in the area can contaminate our everyday drinking water. You can also be careful as to how much fertilizers and pesticides you use because the more you use, the more runs off when it rain and it is in the soil as well so when the rain washes the soil, it flows through storm drains. A great plan is to get a group together and help clean up along local rivers and streams and along side of the road.It helps to limit the trash and bacteria that contaminates our water. Other solutions to help prevent non point source pollution and help keep our water clean is to keep all harsh chemical substances stored away from the ground and in their original containers. Also, If you happen to wash your car, don’t allow the runoff to drain into the streets or the sewage system as it will contaminate it. Opposing views of these issues are perhaps people not agreeing to get up and go volunteer because they have better things to do.Some people see it that the city is supposed to take care of it. Some people won’t want to change the location of where they wash vehicles at. They all want convenience of course. Many people do not have proper inspections of their lawns that have been fertilized. They can be tested by professionals but people will oppose to because it will come with a fee, and others do not have the ir septic tanks cleaned out every few years because of the price as well.Non point source pollution also contributes to eutrophication which is runoff that has nitrogen and phosphate in it and it stimulates the growth of algae and it can harm and kills fish and organisms. The algae grow to make a mat over the water and on the floor of the water that diminishes the light through the water so it lowers the growth and productivity of other plants. â€Å"The water becomes depleted in oxygen. When the abundant algae die and decompose, much oxygen is consumed by those decomposers.Oxygen in the water is also lowered by the lack of primary production in the darkened, deeper waters. Lowered oxygen results in the death of fish that need high levels of dissolved oxygen such as trout, salmon and other desirable sport fish. The community composition of the water body changes, with fish that can tolerate low dissolved oxygen, such as carp predominating. As you can imagine, changes in fish commun ities have ramifications for the rest of the aquatic ecosystem as well, acting at least in part through changes in food webs. (Muir, P. 2009)Some challenges that my plan faces is that it’s not very easy to get others to partake in community service and to also notice the small things they do really contribute to non point source pollution in my community. It takes a group effort to raise awareness on this issue, but if everyone pulls together, our drinking water will be cleaner, our lakes ponds and rivers will be safer to swim and fish in and the plants and animals in the habitats of our waters will be safer and not endangered by our hazardous wastes.This plan effects the entire community and can become a very productive and positive way to protect our environment and ourselves. Our children drink the water we contaminate, even though it has passed through water treatments, it is still not clean enough to drink safely. We can also consider raising awareness groups and contact ing your local news stations to get the word out to your community and also have your coworkers get involved as well. References Muir, Patricia. Oct. 2009. Eutrophication. At people. oregonstate. edu