Consciousness is present throughout our everyday lives and in every situation, we are involved in, be that solving a problem or dreaming in a state of deep sleep. However, if I try to pinpoint one common, underlying feature in these experiences, in order to realise what defines consciousness, no one aspect of the experience palpably…
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In philosophy, there is much debate as to what constitutes a ‘law of nature’. In this essay, I will be critically examining the Naive Regularity Theory of Laws, a popular philosophical account of laws of nature. A proponent of this theory claims that p is a statement of a law of nature if and only…
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There is undoubtedly a variety of opinion in matters of art appreciation – someone may, for example, detest Damien Hirst’s work but praise Raphael’s, and vice versa. A standard of taste is a criterion by which you can judge art to be praiseworthy or not. This means that opinion holds no authority. There are certain…
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Pythagoras was an ancient Greek philosopher who founded Pythagoreanism, a school of thought that is heavily influenced by mathematics and mysticism. The ideas of Pythagoras would prove to be a huge influence on both Aristotle and Plato and, in turn, the development of Western philosophy. Pythagoras (or his movement) is credited with many mathematical and…
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This is the dissertation I wrote for my Philosophy undergraduate degree in 2012. Some of the statistics may be a bit out of date, but recent developments in drug liberalisation (such as in the US) and research on the illicit drug trade – as well as the therapeutic application of certain illicit drugs – are still…
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