Personality academic career effectiveness

Where I am now? What skills have I achieved? Where do I stand in the universe in footings of employability?In the last academic twelvemonth, during my internship with Modman ‘s Royal Caf & A ; eacute ; , Lucknow ( India ) as a selling executive I gained practical accomplishments and besides it provided me with the significant value required in the workplace. I was given several different duties like developing spouse dealingss, carry oning conferences, etc. this besides included promoting and heightening the current services of the concern. During the internship I learned assorted selling constructs and theoretical accounts which helped me to analyze the market with broader position and besides facilitated me to use the theoretical cognition practically in the workplace. I worked with different people coming from all walks of life which helped me in deriving assurance and provided me with the existent universe experience. ( Refer Appendix B and Internship Certificate ) The labor market in India has become more complex than earlier and it is indispensable to possess specific accomplishments and cognition in order to last in the market. Over the class of my internship I developed a strong personal work ethic which will assist me in developing my hereafter calling ends. The ground to why I am determined that I will be able to digest because the internship allowed me to develop those accomplishments and moralss which are critical in the workplace, it provided me with comprehensive mentality and besides it has placed me in a much better place to do picks about my future calling way. Furthermore, I visited Leeds ( U.K. ) for my 3rd semester. The experience I had in the U.K. has made me more determined as an person. This gave me an penetration into my personality that I have developed my accomplishments globally.How Leeds affected me and my perceptual experiences?I learned different facets of life. My visit taught me a batch ; I have improved my accomplishments unusually. I have become more independent than earlier. During my class of survey in Leeds I had joined many societies like picture taking, composing, print devising, etc. I learned a batch during this span of clip by pass oning with different people from different civilization and backgrounds. I got an penetration into their head set that how people think. Talking on the professional line, cognizing people globally has developed my networking accomplishments and communicating manner. What I have experienced and learned from my visit is decidedly traveling to assist me in the hereafter both mentally and pro fessionally.What I am after my visit?I am know more concerned about making out and run intoing the demands of others, though I have to work harder on guaranting that I do non compromise my ain involvements at other peoples ‘ disbursal. Most significantly, I have to work on my clip direction accomplishments to make the timely and orderly completion of any given undertaking. ( Refer Appendix D ) Talking on the development perspectives, I am know a really responsible individual and have learned to prioritise things around me. This has developed and enhanced my employability accomplishments to a great extent. During the last academic twelvemonth, with the aid of assorted faculties I was able to larn different facets of the concern environment. ( Refer Appendix E )Faculty NameWhat have I learned from this faculty?How can I use these skills/knowledge to the things I do in the hereafter?Global Business ContextThis faculty helped me in understanding and researching globalisation. I learned how a concern formulates, what impacts globalisation can hold on concerns. It besides provided me with the recent constructs and model of the planetary environment.During the class of this faculty I had assorted assignments which helped in broadening my accomplishments and cognition which included the launching of a new merchandise to giving a complete item oriented analysis of the chosen state which would be favorable for making concern. Looking from a planetary position, this will decidedly assist me in increasing the possible benefits of any concern and able to function to its bottom line.Employability S killsThis faculty helped me in understanding assorted employability accomplishments required in the labor market.During the class of this faculty, I worked in a squad of 6 members each of us belong to different background, it helped me to understand and pull off diverseness. ( Refer Appendix B.1 ) I learned what difference a C.V. could make in order to happen me an appropriate occupation? Furthermore, I along with other squad members ran an appraisal Centre through which I was able to larn how to interview and besides how to acquire interviewed. From a future position, this will assist me in understanding the needed employability accomplishments in the planetary labor market.Business Analysis and patternThis faculty helped me in groking what is concern? This included strategizing, determination devising, managing the fundss of a company, selling of the merchandise, effectual reading of the information. It besides involved an extended research and seting the research into a program.D uring the class of this faculty, I along with 5 other members worked in a squad. This integrated set uping an car company, from giving a trade name name to the company to its strategizing. I was the pull offing manager of the company, this gave me an penetration into a concern, and I developed my acumen throughout the working of the program. Besides, it helped me to develop my leading skills unusually. ( Refer Appendix C.1 and B.3 ) . What I learned from this faculty will decidedly assist me to per se understand the planetary labor market and client perceptual experiences in any concern.Human resource ManagementThis faculty helped me in understanding the function of HRM and how to use assorted HR policies in an administration maintaining in head the critical apprehension of demands and wants of the employees. ( Refer Appendix C.3 )During the class of this faculty, I learned what HR policies are and how it can impact an administration in both negative and positive ways. This included the declarations to be provided for the given instance survey and using the HR policies by supplying them with feasible recommendations and their possible benefits. This will decidedly assist me in future to move as a HR analyst and supply any concern with executable recommendations which will turn out to be productive.Operationss ManagementThis faculty helped me in developing the ability to understand assorted operations performed in an administration and selectively use operation direction constructs to assorted administrations to better operational public presentation.During the class of this faculty, I learned assorted properties of measuring an administrations operational activity. This involved an person based multimedia instance survey which helped me to grok and analyze assorted operational activity of an administration by supplying them with executable recommendations in order to better the public presentation. From a future position, this will assist me in developing and measuring the operational activity of any concern and therefore bettering the operational public presentation.Pull offing Workplace DiversityThis faculty helped me in understanding the construct behind pull offing diverseness.During the class of this faculty, I learned assorted positions related to diverseness and their positive or negative impact on the concern. It included an person based item oriented analysis speaking about the favoritism in the workplace and what possible policy measures a company should integrate in order to win as a concern. From a future position point, this will assist me to understand assorted diverseness issues predominating in an administration and how I can work to do administration diverseness positive in order to derive upper limit from the employees.Business Decision MakingThis faculty helped me to develop an apprehension of psychological, behavioral and systems positions of determination devising in an administration and promote an analytical and sy stematic attack to determination devising.During the class of this faculty. I along with 5 other members worked in a group to analyze and place the given issues in the instance survey and provided with executable recommendations with their hereafter benefits. I developed my teamwork and managing accomplishments during this appraisal. ( Refer Appendix C.2 ) Teacher ‘s reported on my teamwork and public presentation that I have the strength of acquiring along with people holding different positions towards life. This along with managing and taking a squad, I believe will represent my invaluable strengths sing the alteration which is required in today ‘s universe and do a difference in whatever I do.Why I think that what I learned from these faculties and other experiences will assist in the hereafter?India being an emerging economic system, occupations are increasing twenty-four hours by twenty-four hours. We are all cognizant that late skills development has become one of the top precedences of our state. In the present scenario, employers are besides cognizant about the employability accomplishments required for a peculiar place. The grounds to why I think that I have improved my employability accomplishments are the faculties and the experience ( U.K. ) from which I have learned a batch in the last academic twelvemonth. Though there is a room for more development, but the faculties helped me in understanding and analyzing my ain abilities through which I have improved my soft accomplishments which play a critical function in the present planetary environment. So this is why I strongly believe, what I learned has made me more & A ; lsquo ; employable ‘ than before non merely in the Indian labor market but all over the universe.

Comments and Reactions on 2014 SONA Essay

July 28, 2014, President Benigno S. Aquino, delivered his fifth State of the Nation Address and tackled the matters for government’s contribution in terms of education, health services, defense, public works and many more. The President first mentioned about the controversial â€Å"Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP)†, and still convince his bosses (Filipinos) of the good achievements of DAP. As an example, he cited Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) as an example, and furthen even showed video clips of those TESDA graduates who have now better lives because of their scholarship. He also highligted some of the accomplishments of the administration which involves the following: the Expanded Conditional Cash Transfer of Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), which is now extended when the benefeciaries reached eighteen (18) years of age, not only after the completeion of high school; the broader scope of Sin Tax Bill, which help our country increase its budget without increasing other taxes; see more:sona 2017 reaction On the labor sector, it has been noticeable that there is sudden decrease in the number of strikes due to the improved conciliation and mediation of labor cases by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE); In the infrastructure, the President acknowledged the improved system of the Department of Public Works and Highways, that leads to lesser of corruption within the bidders and contractors which lead to faster delivery of service and resulted to P28 Billion savings and road projects for the Filipinos. I have my personal omments as I watched nd read the content of the said SONA, as follows: There is no admission of any problems encountered by our country. As we heard the President, it seems that everything went well for the Philippines. I partially agree and gave credit to our present Administration for all its efforts to improve our economy, fight corruption and improve the rotten system of the government. However, in the SONA, there is no admission of any problems and issues encountered of the country and this Aquino Administration, or if he can promise not to have another DAP and Pork Barrel Scam in his administration. On the other hand, I agree with the way the President delivered his SONA, in a softer and calm way. Also, good job for no more attacking words and pointing fingers for the previous leaders administration. Further I am looking not only for the  achievements of this country during Aquino administration but but also for the concrete plans and continuity of what he has started, and think those matters were missing in the SONA. To conlude my reaction, I can say that I am satisfied with the content of President Aquino’s SONA, let us not be so dependent on what the government and the President can and cannot offer us, more importantly let us focus on improving ourselves first, the way we will not be a burden, but as assets and contributors to the growth of this count ry.

Twin Study

1. Methods and results In this study, Thomas Bouchard and David Lykken, along with their associates at the University of Minnesota, were attempting to prove if nature is the determining factor in a person’s personality or if it really is the nurturing environment. They wanted to see if twins who were separated at birth and raised in different environments would still have similar personalities, which support the theory that a person’s genes has more impact on a person’s character than the environment.In order to study their hypothesis, Bouchard and Lykken located identical twins that were separated by birth due to adoption and spent a week conducting various tests; four personality trait scales, three aptitude and occupational interest inventories as well as two intelligence tests. Through these examples and other tests, Bouchard and Lykken complied copious amounts of data on the twins. The results of the study favored the nature theory in that an overwhelming pe rcentage of the twins had similar results and personalities despite having never grown up together. . Analysis It does appear that this study’s results proved whether nature or nurture is important in the development of a person’s personality. At least this seems to have been proven in the instance of identical twins. However, there was no mention of research done involving twins raised in the same household to compare to this study’s results. I do believe that the experiment was done properly in coordination with the scientific method but that various psychologists should have replicated the experiment numerous times over time. . Criticisms As with all published findings, there were those who argued against the claims made by Bouchard and Lykken. Some members of the psychological community believed that what was published was incomplete and therefore cannot be regarded as true unless all the results are made available. In addition, some critics claim that Bouch ard and Lykken are guilty of the â€Å"equal environment assumption† which is that identical and fraternal twins are treated equally and raised in identical environments.This assumption is untrue as parents treat fraternal twins, two separately fertilized eggs versus one that split, as complete different individuals like any other siblings born at separate times. Other psychologists agreed with Bouchard and Lykken and even completed their own studies about genetic influence on people’s personalities as well as choices, and many of these studies had similar results, thus further supporting Bouchard and Lykken. 4. ConclusionThe overall meaning of this study is that the debate of nature versus nurture continues in the field of psychology and it is more a matter of interpretation of data and personal belief rather than something set in stone. Psychologists continue to follow the study’s example by investigating the impact of genetics on a person’s choices and actions such as whom they fall in love with and other complexities of human behavior. This study changed psychology in that there was a new element, genes, for psychologists to analyze for explanations about the human psyche.

Perception and Portrayal of the Abolitionist

Societal values have changed so much since a hundred years ago. The development of science and the introduction of many intellectual movements have contributed much to these changes. Ideals which were deemed erroneous or immoral can be accepted and welcomed, and those widely accepted as scientific truths and fact can be debunked and proved wrong as well. But it is wrong to assume that every pillar in society can be changed. Several values and ideals have stood the test of time and were deemed universally and chronologically constant, because this is how society wants them to remain.These values, standards and norms therefore could be likened to a lens, since society uses these things to assess situations and the environmental factors they are exposed to. Everything that happens can be processed differently by different individuals, depending on the lens that he or she uses. There are some who manage to deviate from the norm and use unconventional â€Å"lenses† to view their en vironments and act upon situations differently than the usual. Similarly, how these people are viewed by the rest of society depend on the current value system.Usually, many of these revolutionaries become ostracized or even killed for their beliefs, as the changes they want to bring about may not agree or even violate some of the accepted norms and ideologies. John Brown is one such revolutionary, proposing change in the midst of pro-slavery America. His unconventional ideas and methods went against many standards of pro-slavery society that many saw threatening. However, as times changed and some values and ideologies were revolutionized, society’s views on John Brown’s life also changed.Some viewed him as a brilliant man who saw through American society’s fault, or a hero who died for the freedom of men who were stripped of liberty. Some also viewed him as a madman, a crazy zealot and one of America’s first terrorists. John Brown is also portrayed in v arious ways in popular culture, as his life and words are used in songs, plays and TV shows. Statement of the Problem As a prominent American historical figure, society’s opinion on John Brown is highly influenced by culture and value systems. However, it is a given that some of these values continuously fluctuate and some remain throughout time.With the changes in time and values from the time of John Brown’s active action and his death, how did public perception of him change? If so, what are the factors that affect these changes? Objectives This paper seeks to shed some light on how John Brown was viewed throughout history and time and what factors affected these perceptions of his character. An analysis of information regarding his portrayal in popular culture and a discussion on how these portrayals came about shall be included in this paper. Significance of the StudyThis study is geared towards looking at and analyzing John Brown’s life and seeing how soci ety viewed him while he was alive and after his death. Since it has been established that there has been a conflicting public opinion regarding John Brown, this study will help shed some light on the reasons for this differing public opinion and analyze the factors that contribute to these differences. Using John Brown as a base, sociological dynamics can be more fully understood. Scope and Limitations This study shall only be using online articles, journals and some books as its reference.Data shall be gathered from these materials and a suitable data analysis by the author shall be the basis of the conclusions made in this paper. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE A. Abolitionism and Slavery in the United States The Roots of Slavery Slavery in the United States involved the selling, purchase, ownership of African or even Native American slaves. It first began when the English built their community in Virginia in 1607 and ended up being widely-accepted tradition until 1865. Many of the s laves were gathered from pagan countries and this was written into law by 1705.In Columbia, a slave is defined in law as a human being who is â€Å"deprived of his or her liberty for life and is the property of another. † It was legal to own and keep slaves for as long as they were still alive from 1654 to 1865. By 1860, ownership of slaves has become so widespread that a fourth of the population during that time are comprised of slaves. Disease, famine and damages caused by the war against Native Americans have kept available labor down, and this made importation of slaves more palatable for many business men. The slaves were treated as capital for labor intensive commerce such as the cash crop industry of tobacco.They were considered as the life line of the south’s agricultural industry. A large proportion of the slaves were owned by farmers from the south, as a single farmer there owned an average of 20 slaves. Labor intensive commerce was mostly found in the south as these regions grew tobacco, cotton and sugar as primary exports. Many of the slaves were found in these farms, and here they contributed much to the economic welfare of the country. Racial basis of slavery were not only applied to Africans and Native Americans, but also to some members of the Caucasian race.Some Europeans were also utilized as slaves under a contract to pay debts. These white slaves were only held for a limited amount of time and not fully owned like African slaves. Westward Expansion The westward expansionist tradition of the country not only brought about territory, but it also spread both the tradition of slavery. Many of the cotton farmers moved west and brought their slaves with them. Historians call this period the Second Middle Passage. Many of the slaves were forcefully removed from their families and communities to work for new farms in the west.This slave exodus marked one of the most significant periods in African slavery. African slaves were subjected to psychological stress due to their forceful exclusion from their families and familiar environments. The westward movement was extremely difficult. Aside from the psychological hardship that being away from their families presented, they were also subjected to physical difficulties. Most of them were forced to travel on foot, only stopping in temporary holding pens for slaves where further slave trade was performed. The slaves were mobilized in shackles and chains as traders feared violence ensuing from the slaves.In their destination, extremely difficult work was waiting for them. Many of the areas in the west were still undeveloped, and so the burden of clearing forests, building barns and pioneer-planting crops in the fields were placed on the slaves’ shoulders. Alongside the exhaustion from the intense labor, unfavourable working conditions and amenities contributed to the high mortality rate of newly arrived slaves. This condition was so economically unfavourable for the slave owners that many of them resorted to temporarily renting slaves than using their own to complete the work.Many of the slaves resisted after being exposed to such dreadful conditions which ultimately gave the farmers and their overseers more reason to resort to cruelty and aggression to control slaves. Brutalities towards the slaves were institutionalized by the court. Overseers can physically harm slaves and in some cases, even kill the dissenting slave. The owners were authorized by court to use the slaves and their families at his disposal. Members of the family can be used by the owner to pay-off debts or increase income by selling them as slaves.It is common to find slave families broken and hurt from the separation of husbands, wives and children from one another. The slaves were given amenities and benefits like food, health care and clothing but only to a bare minimum. Disabling slaves by maiming them and executions for fugitive slaves were allowed by law. Sexual ab use and rape of the slaves was also rampant. In court, slaves were considered sub-human. If one does commit a crime, however, he is considered as an entity capable of thought and act, and thus is regarded as a rational being.With all these brutalities toward slaves, it is important to note that the treatment of slaves is dependent on skin color. Light-skinned slaves were dressed, fed and treated better than the dark-skinned ones who worked mostly in the fields. Anti-slavery supporters coming from the north knew of the brutalities and abuses inflicted on the slaves of the south. They sought to stop the institution of slavery, and this produced much tension between the two parties. The north’s movement to abolish slavery went against the economic favourability of slavery during that time.The economy dictated the increasing value of labor intensive industries in the south, and so labourers are needed more than ever. Abolitionist movement With the enlightenment and awareness of p eople regarding human rights came the abolitionist movement. Slavery was something that violated the basic tenet of human rights and dignity, and so it had to be abolished. Northern states have begun to pass acts which declared that all men were born free and equal. Several movements that involved religion and political movements highly influenced the strength and expanse of abolitionist ideals throughout the country.The movements that supported abolitionism varied in method and degree. Some were pacifist, as they tried to use the legal system and passed legislation seeking to make slavery illegal. Others utilized literature and the press like Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Religious movements declared slavery to be sinful and un-Christian, to discourage believers from keeping and owning slaves. Only a minority of abolitionists used to armed revolt and instigation of unrest and anger among the slaves as the main machinery to further t heir cause.The movement continued its stride to abolish slavery, but its strongest anchor point came with the election of a known contester of slavery, Abraham Lincoln, as president. With the head of state holding this position of opposition of slavery, the south felt that their way of life was endangered and threatened. Economic repercussions will be felt by their planters in the cotton, tobacco and sugar farms if the hands that worked in the plantations were to be set free. The zenith of the tensions between the south and the north was the American Civil war.It broke out when the south organized and removed themselves from the control of the American government. Rise of Abolitionism Historian James McPherson defined an abolitionist as a person who has fought for the abolition of slavery in the United States before the Civil war. American abolition started early on, as there were several groups already fighting for the liberation of slaves, such as the Society of Relief of Free Neg roes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and there were several institutions which prohibited slavery already.Several states had passed laws that completely prohibited slavery in their territories. Those who joined the American Anti-Slavery Society or other groups were abolitionists. These movements were not unified, and so could not boast a unified strength. Vermont was the first territory to make slavery illegal, and Pennsylvania was the first state to abolish slavery in 1780. Then several states followed Pennsylvania’s example while some states chose to limit slave trading. Many of the states in the south retained the institution of slavery as it was the region’s life line in their plantations.Their strong adherence to the institution drove them to take a defensive stance against the rising popularity of the abolitionist movement. Many abolitionist writers distributed many anti-slavery writings and literature to the south to help spread the ideologies. Novels, pamphlets and other forms of writing began to circulate not just in the north, but also in the southern region. Southern officials were enraged at the act, and thus moved to ban all types of literature that might instigate rebellion and changes in the south. Violence was even employed to stop the circulation of antislavery media in the south.Elijah Parish Lovejoy, the editor of an abolitionist newspaper was murdered by a mob of pro-slavery southerners. His printing press was also destroyed. Abolitionists recognized the fact that slavery needed to be abolished everywhere in the country, but the north cannot interfere with the affairs of the south because of federal ruling. Because of this, many abolitionists focused on liberating the north and skipping the southern states. Some abolitionists were frustrated and did not like this idea, as they believed that every state should be free of slavery.The movement was further fortified by the support of free African-Americans and their church. With the i ssue of the constitution, the American Abolitionist movement split up into two groups, the Garrisonians, led by William Garrison and Wendell Phillips and another camp led by Spooner and Gerrit Smith. The Garrisonians believed that the constitution promoted slavery while Spooner’s group believed the constitution to be antislavery. Since slavery was unconstitutional, it could be abolished with the blessing of the law.More divisions in the abolitionist movement arose, but because of the social classes of the abolitionists themselves. The artisans and elites divided themselves on the issue of slavery as well. The Underground Railroad was used as a venue by many abolitionists to become more active in the cause for abolition of slavery. Many of the fugitive slaves were illegally transported away from their masters to be free men via this rail. But the railroad was made illegal by the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. But this did not stop the abolitionists from providing s helter and transporting slaves to freedom.

Marcos’ family Essay

Unlike the Antagonist, the protagonist is introduced from the first scene, Eddie Carbone. At first we don’t see him as the mean and vicious person he later turns out to be. From this we get an understanding as to what kind of ‘hero’ he is. During the course of the play Eddie becomes an evil ‘hero’. Making the protagonist an evil person makes the play more effective. At no point does Eddie actually break the law, but instead breaks the rules of society. The society in which Eddie lives, (full of Italian immigrants) has made it a golden rule not to snitch, not to tell on anyone that may be doing something wrong in the governments eyes but not in theirs. Eddie makes this the first thing that Catherine and Beatrice have to know before the arrivals of the cousins. He tells them a true story about Vinnie B, how he betrayed his family by snitching to the authorities about the illegal immigrants his family was hiding. As a result Vinnie gets treated like a foreigner in his own family, and gets thrown down the stairs and has to leave the house despite being the youngest. In this play there is unity of time, place and action, all the action appears to be continuous in one place. Miller brings unity into the play, everything happens over a period of time there are no gaps except the gap between Acts 1& 2 allowing time for Catherine and Rodolfo’s relationship to grow; the unity in this play brings all the action, betray and romance in one place so it gives the audience a better understanding as what is happening. Whereas if one thing was happening in Jersey and another thing in New York it wouldn’t keep the audience interested. Miller creates a sense of pity and sorrow over the audience at the very end of the drama. Eddie ringing the Immigration Bureau brings us to the catastrophe. It is Marco who breaks the law. We, as the viewers, believe that Marco has done nothing wrong but to defend his beliefs, which is to protect his name and by doing so protecting his family. Eddies manliness was challenged when Marco confronted him to a chair lifting contest; this warned Eddie to stay away from Rodolfo. Mixing the pathos and misery with the catastrophe of Eddie’s death makes the drama much more effective. After taking a traumatic journey through Eddies mind, the audience is left to think that he will never love Beatrice again because he has been showing all his emotions, especially ‘lust’ the feeling that is usually associated with couples, towards her niece, but Miller surprises us because Eddie reclaims his love for his wife Beatrice, this is a very tear-jerking scene. He turns what the law says is right into a moral wrong, by having Eddie obey the law and telling the authorities that there are illegal immigrants in the community, but by doing so he is also put the lives of Marcos’ family in Sicily in jeopardy. Miller has borrowed many elements from the Greek Tragedy; he has used the prologue to set the basis of the play, which gave a strong sense of fate from the beginning that something awful is going to come out of Eddie taking in the two cousins. Miller has used Eddie as the Protagonist and also an evil hero. The unity of time and place has been used through out the whole play to give the audience understanding; having things done within 24 hours was significant as to what happened the next day. To have many scenes in separate places may have confused the audience. Miller made the chorus more effective by using the narrator (Alfieri) as the voice behind the story, he expressed the traditional morals and the social attitudes that the audience relate to. The pathos has been used several times in this piece of drama, one example being, when Eddie reclaims his love for Beatrice. This was a tear-jerking scene in the drama, not just making the play dramatic but allowing the audience to feel pity and sorrow for Eddie. Miller borrowing such elements has made the play more effective.

Nuremberg Trial Essay

The Struggle for Justice: Nuremberg Trial. After Germany was defeated in World War II. Millions innocent people had lost their lives. The trials were held at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany. There were many Nazi leaders who were under suspicion and the from all of those the top Nazi leaders were called to go on trial and justify there reasons to committing war crimes and war against humanity for the execution of the Jews, and simply for killing many people innocent people. Hermann Goering, Albert Spear, Wilhelm Keitel and Hans Frank are just a few of the Nazi defendants in the trial. They defended themselves even though there was a lot of proof proving that they were guilty. In this essay we are going to see all the defenses used by these four Nazi defendants. Hermann Goering was the reichmarschell and air force chief, he was the president of Reichstag, and director of the â€Å"four year plan† In the Nuremberg Trial he believed strongly that he was not guilty and did not regret what he did, but this was not what everyone else seemed to think. When Goering was asked about the concentration camps in the trial and who decided upon them, he said † The idea was mine, It was a question of removing danger only one cause was available protective custody. How can the party rule unless it established order and how could it maintain order with it’s deadly enemies particularly the communist running free† I think that the concentration camps were used for torturing people that were innocent and I strongly believe that there were more options then just putting people in concentration camps, this was probably the easiest way to torture hundreds of people at once rather than doing anything else. Many people who were innocent and also many Jews who had not committed anything were taken in just for the reason that they might commit crime in the future, and simply for the hatred the had for the Jewish people, to me that is not a valid reason at all. During the trial there was also a movie shown that was created by motion pictures by allied military photographers and it showed the areas where the concentration camps were located and how people were treated, and the outcome of the camps, it clearly showed people suffering and being tortured only because they were â€Å"supposedly† a threat and might commit a crime. If someone is said to be suspicious it still does not mean that they are thrown to concentration camps, or they are tortured, proof must be shown and then a decision should be made towards that individual. Sadlyno one was heard and no one had the rights to explain themselves innocent. Many people were sent to concentration camps, it did not only happen to people who were suspicious but it mainly happened to millions of innocent people and Jewish people who were simply hated because they were Jews, and to me that is racism and disrespect, and it is disgusting to see that people can take such measures, and torture human beings like they have no rights and like they are just a pieces of toys. Most of all it is also sickening to see that many of these Nazi leaders especially Goering did not regret what they did. Keitel Wilhelm was the chief of staff of German high command, and Hans Frank was the governor-general of Nazi-occupied Poland, called the † Jew Butcher of Cracow† When Hans was asked how he felt about what he had done, and was asked to explain how he did those things, which was shoot and kill people who were innocent, and genocides in the camps. He said that † I don’t know, It’s as though I’m two people. The Hans Frank you see here and the Hans Frank the Nazi leaderI wonder how the other Frank could do these things,This frank looks at the other Frank and says your a terrible man, The other Frank said that I just wanted to keep my job† I respect that Frank realized that what he did was wrong and that he was still not brainwashed by the views that they were forced upon By Hitler and that were influenced by him. Many of the Nazi leaders still believe that what they did was right, and regret nothing and show ignorance through out the trial. I do believe that a person can feel bad for the actions or crimes they have committed, which Frank showed, but unfortunately it was too late. I think that that he is brave to admit his sorrow, and that he feels terrible. On the other hand it is sad to realize that this trial was what made him realize what he did was wrong and even though he did it to keep his job which is understandable because he probably had a family to provide for and to survive on his own. Showing sorrow cannot bring back and change anything, and what was done has happened. I wish that Hans Frank would have stopped his job which was being a Nazi leader, personally I would not want the money I have earned knowing it was because I had killed innocent lives. The next defendant was Kietel Wilhelm, when Kietel and many other war criminals were lined up, that was the moment whenKietel says that† Only following orders, nothing more, you must understand† I think that since many of these Nazi leaders were used to following orders, and that is what they had been doing for a very long time, for that reason I do not blame them for having this type of mind set. I think that what Keitel said was somewhat justifiable and the reason for that is that Hitler was the higher power and he ordered many of the Nazi leaders and if they did not accept his order and do as they were told, they were most likely killed. The fear of being killed is what kept these Nazi’s to do as they were told. With that being said, I believe that what Kietel said was something that any Nazi soldier would say or perhaps any soldier in general. Albert Spear was the Reichminister of armaments and munitions, From all of the the other Nazi leaders he was different. He felt guilty for what he had done just like Hans Frank but when he was in trial he told the truth, and showed that he was truly sorry for his actions. One of the things that he said was † This war has caused catastrophe† I do agree with what Spear said, and it is nice to know that he agrees with this, rather than all the other Nazi leaders who were still brainwashed and though that the war and the crimes done in them were completely fine. He also said that † No one is blameless for the responsibility of the crimes except the victims† After hearing what all the other ignorant Nazi leaders had to say, It was very pleasing to here this from Spear as it shows a sign of shame and that he feels ashamed of his actions. When Spear was asked if he came up with a plan to assassinate Hitler he said † Yes I did try to assassinate Hitler† When he said this it brought lots of hatred towards hims from the Nazi leaders as they gave him dirty looks and were shocked that one of their own man could think of taking such actions. I for one believe that even though Spear was a Nazi, later on he realized that Hitler was evil , he also said † Hitler was a nightmare for our own making† I think that Spear genuinely hated Hitler, and it was not only during the trial he realized but as he was a Nazi leader his hate for him was the reason he wanted to kill Hitler, but unfortunately that did not happen. In my opinion Spear was the only Nazi leader who knew what he was talking about and he seemed to understand that what was done, was absolutely not right, and the only one to realize that was Spear and you can also that regarding say Hans Frank. I think that the courts took what he did too seriously, which is good but at the same time, he told the truth and showed that he really did feel bad for the actions of not only him but of all the others. He was imprisoned for 20 years on charges three and four. I understand that he was also a part of the Nazi group, and he killed many innocent victims, his views from back then have definitely changed, and I believe he is a better person from before. But you must face the consequences for what you have done, and it would only be fair. In conclusion, some of the defenses were justifiable, but what Goering used to justify himself was completely ridiculous and was not justifiable what so ever. Many people had lost family and relatives, and all these people wanted justice and if it were up to me, I would have given some of these Nazi leaders the same torture they did to many of the innocent people, but it was not up to me. In the end justice was given and many of these Nazi’s were hanged to death or imprisoned.

Cramond report Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Cramond report - Coursework Example The plausible reason for this could be differential deposition by the varied compositions of the shore water. Point Estimate Upper CL Lower CL Salinity East Wednesday 32.4 32.9 31.9 Salinity West Wednesday 21 24.3 17.7 Salinity East Friday 32 33.9 31.1 Salinity West Friday 25.2 28.7 21.7 Based on the nature of sediments present a large number of varied species could be present on either side of the causeway. An analysis of the number of species growing at both the sites on each day was also done to further enhance the assessment. The east sand and west mud were analyzed for macrofauna and lugworms. Macrofauna comprise of the shallow water communities that live on or in sediment, or attached to hard substrates majorly living in marine, estuarine or freshwater environments. Annelid worms, bivalves, gastropods, crustaceans, tunicates, and insect larvae are some of the most commonly encountered macrofauna in estuarine and coastal areas. Lugworms are present as coiled castings on the beac h during low tides and are otherwise rarely seen as they dig into the sand. East Sand Wednesday West Mud Wednesday East Sand Friday West Mud Friday Shellfish - cockles 6 0 0 0 Shellfish - Macoma 0 33 30 11 Shellfish - winkles 0 6 0 1 Crustaceans - Corophium 17 41 0 244 Crustaceans - shrimps 2 20 0 1 Ragworms 21 29 21 56 Sandmason worms 0 0 26 0 Other polychaete worms 7 5 23 17 Amongst the macrofauna the species considered were Shellfish – cockles, Shellfish – Macoma, Shellfish – winkles, Crustaceans – Corophium, Crustaceans – shrimps, Ragworms, Sandmason worms and some other polychaete worms (data shown in table 2). Ragworms were the most uniformly present organisms on all days and in all salinity conditions indicating their non-specific nature of growth. Shellfish – cockles, Sandmason worms and Shellfish – winkles on the other hand had a very specific nature of abundance indicating their high sensitivity to even the slightest change in salinity conditions. Shellfish – cockles were less abundant (only 6 in number) and found only on the East Sand and that too only on Wednesday. Sandmason worms grew abundantly in the East sand on Friday only. Shellfish – winkles grew scarcely on West Mud on Wednesday and hardly grew on the West Mud on Friday with only 1 organism found that day. Shellfish – Macoma were found to grow on both the east sand and west mud and were dependant only on the salinity conditions present. They were able to grow on salinity estimates of up to 32 only. Crustaceans – Corophium was unable to tolerate high saline conditions and they grew on the east sand on Wednesday but died by the next day. However, their growth on the west mud was very favorable as they grew fairly well on Wednesday and their growth increased exponentially by the following day as they were found to reach a number of 244 from 41 the previous day. Other polychaete worms like the Ragworms grew on both the places in all days but their abundance was highest on the east sand on Friday. Lugworms were counted during as late as possible in the low tide period as they are otherwise very rarely found on the beach. Raw lugworm counts were scarce ranging from 0-5 only. Lugworms were present scarcely on the west mud on Wednesday but became nil by Friday probably due to change in salinity conditions. Similar pattern of abundance was seen on the east mud as

Leadership assessment Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Leadership assessment - Assignment Example This was clearly indicated by the below average rating in the final report of the survey. Also, most students recommended that this is a field that I should improve on. Critical thinking is an important trait in leadership that helps one to make informed decisions and hence be able to come up with clear and workable solutions for any problem (Scouller, 2011). According to comments from the survey, this character is shown in my poor approach to social problems. As a student aspiring to be a leader, this weakness portrays me to the people as a poor problem tackler. This gives a negative attitude to the people towards my leadership strategies. Thus, it is significant to solve this problem at an early stage. For this reason, I plan to assimilate various techniques to curb this weakness. One of the measures that I plan to undertake is getting involved in more debate sessions in the school. This will help me to improve on my defensive skills, as I try to reason out through stated problems. Another approach is to read more materials on the topics of proper leadership. This will help me to find out tactics of making informed decisions in times of critical problems. Finally, I will be more interactive in my fellow students’ problems so as to try and apply whatever I learn. This will help alleviate the attitude that these students have on me. This way, I believe that in four months’ time, I can manage to sharpen my decision making skills(Scouller, 2011). In this transformation process, I will involve my discussion group membersto oversee my implementation process. I will request them to advise me once in a week and give me a critical evaluation on my behavior. Having one of these group members being a leader in the student counsel, I believe he will be in a good position to correct my actions. In this process, my major challenge will be finding a way to instill this learnt skill into my day today behavior within such a short period. This is because acquired traits

Social Support Group for People with Diabetes Research Paper

Social Support Group for People with Diabetes - Research Paper Example The role of social support in the health care profession is well accepted and has been shown to provide a certain degree of assistance in terms of alleviation of a number of illnesses and diseases (Sieloff, Frey, & King, 2007). However, there are also still a number of pathological fields that have yet to explore the efficacy of social support in terms of alleviations of symptoms and general recovery. Along these lines, this paper explores the hypothesis, â€Å"A social support group for people with diabetes will increase their medication compliance,† within the boundaries of relevant concepts, particularly social support. A total of eight articles are reviewed in this paper, offering insights on the population and sample, background literature, and significance of earlier studies made in support of the mid-range theory of social support. Some of these articles cover the theory of social support and its perceived effects on people with diabetes, while others focus on a more ge neral application of the theory on other diseases and medical conditions. The conceptual definitions of social support in nursing researches are largely the same, varying only in terms of the degree of intimacy that researchers agree upon. Operational definitions of social support, however, differ depending on the focus and the extent of the study. Different populations were used in the studies investigating the effects of the existence of a social support group. Since the particular hypothesis herein focuses on people with diabetes, the population utilized for a majority of the researches included in this review involves diabetic patients Social support: Review of Related Literature In a study by Patterson and Brewer (2009), social support was defined as â€Å"the informational, instrumental / practical, emotional, and affirmational resources that people can receive from others† (p. 178). Operationally, social support was measured in terms of the amount of â€Å"information , aid, strategy, or resource that helps the parent to cope with the stressors and challenges associated with parenting an adolescent with diabetes† (p. 179). In this study, the population considered were parents of children with diabetes and the sample consisted of nine parents (six mothers and 3 fathers) of children with Type 1 diabetes. The study explicitly mentions reference to theories of support (p. 179) and it supports the existing theory by showing that parents are necessary social support for adolescents with diabetes. In the second study reviewed, Goz, et al (2005) defined social support as â€Å"the assistance and protection given to others, especially to individuals.† Presence of social support was measured in terms of the presence of family, including parents, spouse, offspring, siblings and grandparents; friends; and, a significant other, in the form of boy/girlfriend, relative, neighbor, and doctor using a pre-piloted survey questionnaire delivered to the participants (Goz, et al, 2005). The population for the study consisted of patients with Type 2 diabetes while sample group consisted of â€Å"66 type 2 diabetes patients being followed up in the Diabetes Polyclinic of Kocaeli State Hospital in the Marmara

COMPARE AND CONTRAST Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

COMPARE AND CONTRAST - Essay Example He would create artwork out of imaginary or out of love of a certain scenario. In outdoor paintings, he captured nighttime light and shadow nuances uniquely and was highly renowned for his sunflower and irises paintings. Van was tormented buy mental illnesses and therefore most of artwork was done in while he was institutionalized. He was not lucky to sell his paintings and drawings but he managed to sell only one painting. Though he did not gain economic benefits out of his masterpieces, he is rated as one of the most influential artists of the nineteenth century. One such work is the drawing below namely the bedroom: He developed the masterpiece in 1888 while he was living in his house situated in Arles. His bedroom in Arles had a powerful combination of colors that he was proud of. According to the description found in a letter to his brother, the walls are pale violet, floor is made of red tiles, the color of the bed and chairs is yellow of fresh butter, the sheets and pillows are light greenish citron, the window’s color is green, the toilet table is orange, the basin is red in color while the doors are lilac. The coverlet is scarlet. The description of colors of the various entities in the room is a good indication of how the artist paid special attention to combination and use of colors in his masterpieces. The details of the artwork are well displayed starting from the wall hangings, arrangement of the room, texture of the furniture and color combination. Through use of color combination, he is able to highlight the various entities of an object in making his communication to the audience. He uses colors that match the natural look of the item involved therefore making it looks real for the audience. This has resulted to high quality artwork that is highly appreciated by the audience. The artist uses shapes and lines to bring out a more real artistic work. For instance in drawing the chair, he uses

Expert and pedagogical content knowledge Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Expert and pedagogical content knowledge - Essay Example One may gather this kind of knowledge through a training specific to that field through the assimilation of intense theoretical and practical assessment and methods. Pedagogical content knowledge was described by Shulman (1987a) as the combination of content and pedagogy into the comprehension of how certain topics, issues, or problems are structured, characterized and modified to the varied concerns and abilities of learners for instruction. This is the knowledge on how to teach the subject matter to beginners. Example of pedagogical content knowledge is the information on organizational framework that may serve as effective aid for individuals who want to learn the basics of organizational psychology. Basically, both expert and pedagogical knowledge is important in teaching. Without expert knowledge, the instructor would not have a strong foundation and would have low credibility for teaching a specific field. If he doesn't have the knowledge to teach the subject matter then, it would not also be effective. There had been a shift on the focus of learning from the teacher to the student (Angelo, 1997). Another distinction made was that teacher-centered mode of instruction is more content-driven while learner-centered instruction is learning process-driven (Cuseo, n.d.). Santrock (2003) came up with the principles of learner-centered instruction. One of his principles was goals of learning. He explains that goal setting helps student learning. This is in connection to motivation which can come from external factors such as the teachers and the environment and could also come from the person himself with his realization of important matters. Both of these will lead to the formation of a goal. When I was in the fourth grade, I was beginning to be aware of some of my classmates' academic excellence. I just thought of striving to make it to the honors list in order to know the feeling of being there. That was also when I got my first set of encyclopedia. I studied everyday reading every page of the encyclopedia. I was determined to perfect my tests and was actively participating in class. I became recognized in class and gained attention from my teachers. This started my participation in other extra-curricular activities. I got what I wanted and made it to the honors list. I became a consistent honor student until high school. That became my foundation and the experience itself acts as my present motivation. Using technology in the educational environment Classroom instruction has become easier and more efficient with the advent of technology. Present modes of teaching have utilized technology for audio and visual enhancement. For the visual aspect, instructors have used over-head projectors in the past and at present power point presentations are the most commonly used. Studies show that verbal instruction coupled with visual presentation yields more positive learning results as compared to receiving verbal instructions alone. This mode of presentation enables the instructor to prepare for the lecture in advance. This can also increase attention rates of students because of clear and organized lectures. These presentations can also be transferred, printed and uploaded to the internet so that the information can be

A Task on Geotechnics Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

A Task on Geotechnics - Coursework Example Since in our case and , point L has such Figure 1. coordinates . At the same time, x coordinate of point M equals , while its z coordinate equals . Since in our case , , , and , point M has such coordinates . Points L and M are shown on Figure 1. We look for equation of the dam slope adjacent to the water reservoir in the form where and are constants. Since points L and M lie on this line, and can be found from the solution of the following system of equations (1) Solving the first equation of this system for we obtain the following . (2) Substituting the right hand side of equation (2) for in the second equation of system (1) we obtain the following . Therefore, . From equation (2) it follows that . Hence, the equation of the slope adjacent to the water reservoir has the following form:. The water level is equal to . Since and , the z coordinate of point A equals 43. Moreover, point A lies on line LM. Therefore, its x coordinate satisfies the following equation . Solving it for x we obtain that point A has such coordinates . In its turn, the difference between x coordinates of points L and A is the following:. Point F on the water surface at distance from point A has the following coordinates –. The difference between x coordinates of points F and O is the following: . ... Table 1. 0.2*H 0.4*H 0.6*H 0.8*H H x= -0,539 11,579 31,774 60,048 96,400 z= 8,600 17,200 25,800 34,400 43,000 Problem # 2 In the second problem we are supposed to correct the shape of the phreatic line in the vicinity of point A. Therefore, we draw a curve that intersects line LM at right angle and â€Å"meets the base parabola smoothly and tangentially at a convenient point say,† N (Vijayendra, 2010, p. 15). The final shape of the free surface is shown on Figure 2. Figure 2 Problem # 3 Curve KNA shown on Figure 3 is a free water surface. Hence, the pore water pressure along this line is constant and equal to the atmospheric pressure (Vijayendra, 2010, p. 11). We assume that the pore water is incompressible. The hydraulic head is given by such the expression where here and below is the water density, is the acceleration of free fall, is pressure of the pore water (Wikipedia, n. d.). Therefore, the head loss between any two points belonging to this curve is proportional to the difference in their vertical coordinates. Since curve KNA is a phreatic line, it is a flow line (Vijayendra, 2010, p. 11). Segment LO shown on Figure 3 is the interface between the soil and the impermeable boundary. Therefore, it is a flow line (Vijayendra, 2010, p. 4). We draw the equipotential lines that start at points , , , and N making smooth transitions between their â€Å"straight and curved sections† (Vijayendra, 2010, p. 5). These lines are perpendicular to flow lines LO and KNA, as it is shown on Figure 3. Segment LA shown on Figure 3 is the â€Å"soil and permeable boundary† interface. Therefore, it is an equipotential line (Vijayendra, 2010, p. 4). The toe drain is a pipe

Starbucks case analysis Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Starbucks analysis - Case Study Example They also make sure that their coffee is of the best quality at all time. Not only do they source the best beans and roast them in special methods, but they also improve the lives of those that grow them. The company’s Corporate Social Responsibility is beyond words as it envisions being a part of every community it sets up a coffeehouse. Starbucks Coffee tackles the sustainability challenge in a very creative and unique way. They believe that they can and should have a positive impact on the communities they serve. They have the motto of one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time. They promote the communities by minimizing environmental hazards, offering high quality products and also inspiring them to take care of their surroundings (Schultz and Gordon 57). The company reduces its environmental footprint by recycling, using greener stores, and conserving the energy and water used in the stores. The company also advises farmers on how to deal with climate change

Cognition Development and Music Training Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Cognition Development and Music Training - Essay Example His world is bounded by the sense of touch and better yet, by the sounds that his surroundings would offer. Perhaps a good example of how sounds contribute to the human brain is the teaching of verbal language to the young ones. The words they utter such as 'Mama' or 'Dada' results from the insistent and persistent training of the parents who illustrate by speaking to the baby in an instructional technique. Consider for example the study of Weber et al (as cited in Overy, 2000) which employed elementary school students from 50 Swiss educational institutions. There was an experimental curriculum in which language and math subjects were augmented with musical instruction. The finding was that those who availed of such an instruction performed better in language and reading than those who took the standard courses. Another interesting study is that of Gardiner et al (1996) who found out that those 1st grade students who availed of a program which replaced standard methods of instructions with musical teaching registered better performances in math and the languages. Indeed, the association between sounds and learning have been the interest of many studies some of which have been specialized as more scientific tools are becoming available. Consider for instance the study published in the Society of Neuroscience conducted by Lahav and Schlaug (2007) of Harvard Medical School. What they did was to teach nine randomly selected people (from a pool of candidates who have met certain criterions such as having no musical training) and teach them a five note, 24 second song. They then let the subjects listen to three different songs - the one they taught, another one with the same five notes but different... What they did was to teach nine randomly selected people (from a pool of candidates who have met certain criterions such as having no musical training) and teach them a five note, 24 second song. They then let the subjects listen to three different songs – the one they taught, another one with the same five notes but different arrangement and another one with additional notes. By using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), they were bale to come with an image that shows that when they hear the song they were taught there was significant activity on the frontal and parietal lobe. This part of the brain is associated with motor movements which leads the author to speculate that the human mind may have developed neuron systems which allows us to understand actions even when they cannot be observed but can only be heard such as when we hear the rustling of   leaves.  What is important to recognize is that these studies serve as proof that there is indeed a connection between the b rain and musical training.Professional Training in Music  Ã‚  After having illustrated the connection between brain development and sounds, we are now prepared to consider a much more complex topic and that is the inquiry into whether professional musicians have developed cognition abilities different than those who haven’t received musical training at all. I caution the reader, however, that this discussion does not presuppose that there is indeed some form of connection as what our previous discussion would tell us.

Nutrition Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Nutrition - Essay Example These enzymes hydrolyze the long peptides of the chyme to short peptides containing only 2 or 3 amino acids. Any unaffected protein particles that have escaped the gastric juice are digested. The ability of the intestine to digest, not only gastric peptides, but also intact proteins, makes possible the nutrition of people with achylia gastrica and even of persons who have had the stomach completely removed. The soluble digestive products then diffuse into the bacterial cell and are used. Protozoa usually sweep food particles and water into their bodies, at a fixed or a changed position; and these food vacuoles constitute temporary "stomachs" in which the digestion proceeds. Metazoa have permanent digestive organs, most elaborate in the mammals. Man's digestive system, or alimentary canal, is a continuous passage through the body, from mouth to anus, with special extensions into accessory secreting organs (glands) (Lipski, 2004). 2. Whenever an organism consumes food in the solid state, this must be brought into solution before it can be utilized. It is necessary, therefore, that such solid food be digested. In some organisms digestion may occur outside of the body, and this may constitute an important adaptation for those animals which are in the habit of eating animals larger than themselves (Lipski, 2004). Ordinarily, however, food is taken into the body and digested there. Digestion may occur in cavities of special organs such as the stomach or intestine, or it may occur within the protoplasm of cells. The latter type of digestion obviously takes place in protozoa. In organisms such as paramecium or ameba the ingested food is enclosed in a food vacuole, which serves the same purpose as the stomach or intestine of a complicated metazoan. Within the food vacuole the solid food particle is brought into solution. It must not be thought, however, that intracellular digestion is confined to protozoa. Moreover, in some animals rather higher in the evolutionary scale, there is also a certain amount of intracellular digestion (Holford 2005). These phagocytic cells even enter into the lumen of the stomach or intestine, ingest particles of food there and then carry these food particles back into the tissues and digest them there. Such intracellular digestion, however, is a primitive character and it does not occur to any extent in higher animals such as the insects and vertebrates. In the conversion of solid food to a state of solution, enzymes play the leading role. It will be necessary, therefore, to consider the subject of enzymes and the nature of enzyme action. It should be strongly emphasized, however, that enzymes are not concerned only with digestion, but that they are essential factors in all of the chemical activities of the organism (Lipski, 2004). The living organism is essentially a chemical engine, dependent for its growth, maintenance and energy on chemical reactions. These reactions are controlled by catalysts. One of the most striking achievements of modern biology and biological chemistry is the isolation of more and more of these catalysts so important for the vital process. Once isolated, it is possible to study their behavior in test tubes or other suitable containers. In other words, one can detach from the living material certain non-living substances capable of causing or promoting the complex chemical transformations which constitute a major part of the mystery of protoplasm. The substance

Biomedical Informatics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Biomedical Informatics - Essay Example Historians have found evidence of the disease as far back as 5000 B.C. It was first described as "the shaking palsy" in 1817 by British doctor James Parkinson. Because of Parkinson's early work in identifying symptoms, the disease came to bear his name. In the normal brain, some nerve cells produce the chemical dopamine, which transmits signals within the brain to produce smooth movement of muscles. In Parkinson's patients, 80 percent or more of these dopamine-producing cells are damaged, dead, or otherwise degenerated. This causes the nerve cells to fire wildly, leaving patients unable to control their movements. Symptoms usually show up in one or more of four ways: This diagram of the brain shows several structures related to Parkinson's disease. Basal ganglia affect normal movement and walking; substantia nigra are types of basal ganglia that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine, which sends messages that control muscles. The globus pallidus is part of a larger structure connected to the substantia nigra affecting movement, balance and walking. The thalamus serves as a relay station for brain impulses, and the cerebellum affects muscle coordination. Though full-blown Parkinson's can be crippling or disabling, experts say early symptoms of the disease may be so subtle and gradual that patients sometimes ignore them or attribute them to the effects of aging. At first, patients may feel overly tired, "down in the dumps," or a little shaky. Their speech may become soft and they may become irritable for no reason. Movements may be stiff, unsteady, or unusually slow. Ref : www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1998/498_pd.html - Basic PD research over the last several decades, including genetics, molecular and cellular biology, characterization of neural circuitry, brain anatomy, and neurochemistry, has formed the basis of therapeutic research being currently pursued for PD. While the causes of PD are still not fully understood, the most prevalent theories suggest that toxic accumulation of protein in cells, dysfunctional protein clearance, and oxidative stress that leads to cell death are primary causal pathways. There is now genetic evidence for each of these pathways, and a prevailing research strategy is to identify points in these pathways that could be exploited for therapeutic benefit. Today's basic science research continues to span a diverse array of fields, from genes and molecules, through cells and physiological systems, to the role of the environment and its interaction with genetic susceptibility. It is expected that these studies will continue to inform preventive strategies and better treatments for PD in the future. The Genetics and Cell Biology of Parkinson's disease One of the most remarkable transformations in PD research over the last decade was the identification of the first gene to be associated with PD, -synuclein. The discovery that genetic mutations could cause PD brought a sea change to a field that had previously focused only on environmental causes of the disease. Since the discovery of alpha synuclein in

Retaining and Attracting Staff in Organisation Research Proposal

Retaining and Attracting Staff in Organisation - Research Proposal Example Key lessons and findings would be summarised and compiled to provide a useful reference that would be of benefit for any company of any size and in any part of the world in the task of facing this global challenge. First, the characteristic of the workplace is constantly changing because of the increasing globalisation of firms, which has affected firms in several ways such as raising the level of competition, demanding better performance and productivity from employees, and requiring higher standards of innovativeness, work values, skills and attitudes. This increased competition amongst firms has been extended from the marketplace for products and services and into the market for talented employees who need to be attracted and retained with the use of increasingly innovative and effective strategies. Second, the characteristics of the workforce -current, long-term, and incoming - are changing due to several factors, such as demographics, academic and professional qualifications, and job-related expectations. As companies compete and grow, they are increasing the demand for workers in a world where the population of talented workers is not growing as fast as the rise in demand. To take an example, companies need to attract and retain the highly educated Generation Y and the highly mobile Generation X (post-baby boom) and aging baby boomers. The research study will consider these two issues using updated findings based on primary and secondary research data as explained in the next section. The basic foundational materials for the study will be four of the latest research sources on the topic of attraction and retention of staff in organisations. The first is the latest Human Resources Salary Survey 2006/2007 conducted by the Tokyo (Japan)-based global recruitment and consulting agency Michael Page International (Leithead 2007) based on their experiences in global hiring and retention with a

Case study 2 Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

2 - Case Study Example a decision to edit the longer version of the movie was made in the interest of producing a shorter film that could be suitable for commercialization. This resulted in the film incurring greater losses. The major problem in the case is that there lacks proper teamwork. According to the teamwork effectiveness model, teamwork refers to a group of people who interact to influence each other, and are mutually accountable for the achievement of the common set goals and objectives (Mcshane & Steen, 2012). In this case, there was neither influencing of each other since the director worked on the film production singly nor was there common goals achievement, since the producer and the studio’s executives were working with objectives or realizing different goals. Despite the fact that most of all the financial requirements for producing the Conquistadors movie were effectively met, the final product was still not satisfactory. Teamwork was lacking throughout the whole process of filming the movie, such that the producer was left to make most of the decisions related to the film from the beginning to the end, including dictating the content of the final product. Teamwork requires cons ultations and negotiations at all stages of a project, to ensure that the interests of all parties are put into consideration (Mcshane & Steen, 2012). However, the Conquistadors majorly featured the interests of the film producer, Mark Frazier, while disregarding the interest of the Big Screen Studio. Consequently, the whole Conquistadors was produced and edited in the ideas and interests of the producer, with little or no studio contribution, resulting in its ultimate failure. Lack of proper communication is yet another problem in the case. Communication entails the process by which information is transmitted and understood by the parties (Mcshane & Steen, 2012). However, even though the producer and the executive’s of the Big Screen studio were communicating, they did not understand the

English Proverbs Essay Example for Free

English Proverbs Essay A Ability can take you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there. Zig Ziglar, in See You at the Top (1975), p. 380 Absence makes the heart grow fonder. From Isle of Beauty by Thomas Haynes Bayly Absence makes the heart grow fonder but makes the mind forget. The acorn (apple) never falls far from the tree. Act today only, tomorrow is too late Action is the proper fruit of knowledge. Actions speak louder than words. (a common English saying) Advice most needed is least heeded. After dinner sit a while, after supper walk a mile. All cats love fish but hate to get their paws wet. All flowers are not in one garden. Clothes make the man. A coin of gold is delighting in a bag of silver coins Cometh the hour, cometh the man. (Some information about the phrase and about its use by a 1940s cricketer) A constant guest is never welcome. A coward dies a thousand times before his death. The valiant never taste of death but once. From William Shakespeares Julius Caesar[1] The cure is worse than the disease. The customer is always right. Cleaning the house when kids are growing, is like shoveling snow when its still snowing. [edit]D Damned if you do, damned if you dont. Lorenzo Dow (d. 1834). [2] Desperate times call for desperate measures. The difference between a man and a cat or a dog is that only a man can write the names of the cat and the dog. Different strokes for different folks. Discretion is the better part of valor. Derived from The better part of valour is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life. Falstaff in Shakespeares Henry IV, Part 1. Does a one-legged duck swim in circles? alternate saying for Does a bear shit in the woods and a common response to an obvious answer yes to a silly question. Do it today, tomorrow it may be against the law. Dont bark if you cant bite. Dont bite off more than you can chew. Dont bite the hand that feeds you. Dont bring a knife to a gun fight. Dont burn your bridges. Dont burn the candle at both ends. Dont count your chickens before theyre hatched. Dont cross a bridge before you come to it. Dont cry over spilt milk. Dont cut off your nose to spite your face. Dont dig your grave with your own knife and fork. Dont enter your nose in the affairs of others. Dont fall before youre pushed. Dont have too many irons in the fire. Dont judge a book by its cover. Dont judge a man by the size of his hat, but by the angle of his tilt. Dont let procrastination eat your own clock.

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Free Will and Moral Responsibility Essay This collection of essays has its roots in a conference on free will and moral responsibility held at Monash University in November 2005, though only a few of the papers presented at the conference have made it into the current volume. We would like to thank both the participants at this conference and the contributors to this volume, as well as Cambridge Scholars Publishing for inviting us to put the collection together. Grateful acknowledgement is also made to the editor of the online journal, Sorites, where Nick Trakakis’ paper, â€Å"Whither Morality in a Hard Determinist World? †, was originally published (in vol. 19, December 2007). Finally, thanks to Shannon Weekes for her assistance in compiling the Index. INTRODUCTION NICK TRAKAKIS AND DANIEL COHEN Much of the interest of the free will debate depends on the assumption that free will is necessary for moral responsibility. In particular, it is because responsibility seems so important for our practical lives that debates about the compatibility of free will and determinism seem so urgent. However, much of the discussion in this volume bypasses this link. Instead, questions are raised that directly concern responsibility, such as whether it is compatible with determinism (see, for example, the essays by Fischer, Widerker, and Pereboom) and whether it is compatible with indeterminism (for example, the exchange between Levy and Kane). For the purposes of this introduction, we have not attempted to summarize the various ways in which the contributors construe the metaphysical foundations of moral responsibility. Instead, we wish to address a more preliminary matter. In the first part of this introduction, our aim is to say something about what we mean when we say that someone is morally responsible. It is surely important to clarify this before addressing any further substantive issues because, if we don’t clarify the meaning of this key term, there remains a significant danger that different participants in the debate about the possibility of moral responsibility will simply ‘talk past each other’. This suggests that in order to conduct a fruitful debate participants need firstly to agree on the nature of their subject-matter and, perhaps, to disambiguate different dimensions of the debate that arise if the term ‘moral responsibility’ has different connotations. In the second part of the introduction, we will discuss a neglected Wittgensteinian perspective on the notions of freedom and responsibility, a perspective that may help to clarify some of the confusion that arises when we ask what it means to say that a person is free or responsible. 1. The Meaning of Responsibility. Before proceeding to ask whether people are, in fact, ever morally responsible, it seems that an important preliminary matter needs to be settled. That is, we need to ask what we mean when we say that a person is x Introduction morally responsible. As will quickly become clear, settling this preliminary matter is, in fact, much harder than it first seems. Many of the controversies concerning the possibility of responsibility emerge even when we try to say just what ‘responsibility’ means. Let’s start with a claim that seems relatively uncontroversial. We will simply assume that ‘person A is responsible’ is a normative claim. That is to say, it is a claim to the effect that it is appropriate to hold A responsible in certain circumstances (circumstances, for example, where A has acted wrongly and where no mitigating, justifying, or excusing factors are present). However, this account of the meaning of ‘A is responsible’ raises at least two further issues. Firstly, we need to say more about what it means to hold someone responsible and, secondly, we need to say more about the nature and basis of the norms that govern appropriate responsibility attribution. It is important to keep in mind that our goal, in clarifying these two questions, should not be to settle any question regarding whether people are, in fact, ever morally responsible. Rather, we want to settle the terms of this debate before it begins. To this extent, we need sufficiently neutral accounts both of the nature of responsibility attribution and of its normative basis so that we don’t beg any substantive questions before debate has even begun. As we will try to show, however, this is a rather elusive goal. The only neutral account of the nature of responsibility attribution renders the normative question deeply controversial. And the only neutral account of the normative basis of responsibility attribution renders the nature of responsibility attribution deeply controversial. Holding Responsible There appear to be two plausible contending views regarding the nature of responsibility attribution. On cognitivist accounts, holding A responsible fundamentally involves believing something to be true of A, while on noncognitivist accounts, holding A responsible essentially involves holding some conative attitude towards A. (Cognitivists may, of course, argue that responsibility attribution is also usually associated with some conative attitude. However, they will maintain that it is possible to hold someone responsible without holding such conative attitudes. Similarly for noncognitivist accounts, mutatis mutandis. ) Non-cognitivism appears to provide the most successful neutral basis on which to premise the debate concerning the possibility of responsibility. This is because there seems little room for debate concerning the conative attitudes that characterize normal responsibility Nick Trakakis and Daniel Cohen xi attribution. In particular, few would disagree that responsibility attribution is strongly associated with the ‘reactive attitudes’ identified by P. F. Strawson, i. e. , resentment, indignation, anger and so on. 1 If one wishes to argue, however, that the reactive attitudes, while prevalent, are inessential to responsibility attribution, it is much harder to locate any common ground concerning the beliefs that are essential to responsibility attribution. One may suggest, for instance, that to hold A responsible is to believe that she is the source of some bad behaviour. Deep controversies quickly emerge on this view, however. One might take sourcehood to involve a psychological claim, for instance that A ‘really wanted’ to act wrongly. 2 However, others might object that any such glib psychological account fails to explain why it is fair to blame A for the wrongdoing (see Smilansky’s contribution). One might object, in this vein, that any such psychological story is unable to show that an agent really is the source of her having certain desires or values (see McKenna’s contribution), and that sourcehood thus requires some more obscure metaphysical basis (e. g. , agent-causation). Alternatively, one may suggest that sourcehood involves some impossible requirement such as that an agent was self-created. 3 On this view, holding someone responsible is essentially impossible. 4 Our goal is to account for the meaning of responsibility in neutral terms so as to provide a basis for constructive debate about the conditions (and the very possibility) of responsibility. It appears, however, that the cognitivist view of responsibility attribution quickly leads to debates that already beg these important questions before debate has even begun! This suggests that the best theory-neutral account of the meaning of responsibility must explain holding responsible in non-cognitivist terms. The Normative Basis of Responsibility Attribution Recall that, for the purposes of this discussion, we have assumed a normative account of responsibility according to which ‘A is responsible’ means ‘it is appropriate to hold A responsible in certain conditions’. Having addressed how best to interpret what ‘holding A responsible’ might mean, without begging any important questions, we need now to turn to a second question raised by the normative account: when exactly is it appropriate to hold someone responsible? In other words, what are the norms that govern appropriate responsibility attribution? Again, there are two plausible contending views: appropriateness may be explained either in terms of practical norms (taking ‘holding responsible’ to be analogous xii Introduction to the performance of an action) or by way of doxastic norms (taking ‘holding responsible’ to be analogous to the formation of a belief). Again, only on one of these accounts—the doxastic view—is it possible to offer an appropriately uncontroversial explanation of the norms implicit in responsibility attribution. On the doxastic view, one ought to hold A responsible if and only if it is true that A is responsible. On this view, the normative basis of responsibility attribution straightforwardly derives from the normativity of belief. It is clear that the doxastic account presupposes the cognitivist view discussed earlier, according to which holding A responsible involves believing something about her. Given this view of the nature of responsibility attribution, the normative question— concerning when responsibility attribution is appropriate—has a straightforward answer. Unfortunately, as we saw, there is no uncontroversial way to account for the truth-conditions of ‘A is responsible’, on the cognitivist assumption that it involves belief. So, despite the advantages of the doxastic view in providing a neutral account of the normative basis of responsibility attribution, this view at the same time precludes us from obtaining a neutral view regarding the nature of responsibility attribution (i. e. , the truth-conditions for the belief that A is responsible. ) Might we find an account of the normative basis of responsibility attribution that is consistent with the preferable non-cognitivist view outlined earlier? This would have to involve an alternative view, according to which responsibility attribution is justified in virtue of practical norms. However, if responsibility attribution is governed by practical norms, then things are much less straightforward. One may suggest that the relevant practical norms are just moral norms, so that ‘A is responsible’ states something like: ‘It is morally obligatory (or, perhaps, permissible) to hold A responsible’. This view may appear immediately problematic because the appropriateness of responsibility attribution will now depend on further questions that are deeply controversial (for instance, questions concerning the debate between consequentialism and nonconsequentialism; see Vargas’ contribution). A more fundamental worry arises concerning the methodological appropriateness of appealing to moral norms. One may argue, for instance, that the nature of moral obligation, itself, depends on the foundations of responsibility, which is, of course, the question at issue. Haji (in his contribution) argues that the best metaphysical basis of responsibility (i. e. , event-causal libertarianism) renders moral obligation essentially lucky. This suggests that there would be something viciously circular in explaining the meaning of responsibility Nick Trakakis and Daniel Cohen xiii in terms of some claim about our moral obligations. (See also Trakakis’ contribution. ) To avoid these worries, one may appeal to practical norms that appear to be more fundamental than any particular moral system. For instance, R. J. Wallace offers a normative account of responsibility that appeals to fairness. 5 This is meant to provide a normative basis for responsibility that remains neutral on more substantive moral issues. (See also Smilansky’s contribution. ) Clearly, however, appealing to practical norms launches us into further debates that already beg the question at issue. Again, such an account seems ill-suited for the purpose of setting up a neutral definitional framework on which to premise further debate. A Dilemma Our aim has been to find some neutral definition of responsibility to enable further non-question-begging debates about the possibility and conditions of responsibility. It seems that this goal gives rise to a tricky dilemma. The best theory-neutral account of holding responsible is the non-cognitivist account. However, this account appears incompatible with the best theory-neutral account of the norms that govern responsibility attribution—the doxastic account. The doxastic account, in turn, seems compatible only with the most problematic account of holding responsible—the cognitivist account. This is a puzzling result. Even though responsibility clearly gives rise to very complex issues, it is surprising that it is not possible even to define the terms of the debate without deep controversy. The worry thus remains that debates about the possibility and conditions of responsibility are essentially question-begging, insofar as different participants to the debate conceive of its key terms differently. Must we conclude, then, that different people and different theorists are indeed talking past each other when they debate about the possibility of responsible action? This, of course, would be a depressingly deflationist conclusion. There is a possible way out, however, that is rarely canvassed. If the question concerns the meaning of ‘responsibility’, one might suggest that there are, perhaps, other ways to settle things. In particular, isn’t the meaning of a term determined by our use of the term? (Or, at least, isn’t use a good guide to meaning?) Thus, appeal to real-world attributions of responsibility may illuminate the meaning of the term ‘responsible’. Such a methodology is sometimes rejected on the grounds that real-world attributions are rife with internal inconsistency (see, for example, Cohen xiv Introduction and Saling’s contribution). But perhaps a closer look at the Wittgensteinian ‘solution’ to the problem of freedom and responsibility will throw new light on the matter. 2. Making Sense of Free Will: A Wittgensteinian Account Wittgenstein published very little during his lifetime, and even less on the topic of free will. He does, however, make some pertinent remarks in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that mirror in some respects the contemporary debates on free will. As is well known, the early Wittgenstein claims to have definitively solved the central problems of philosophy, and by implication this would include the perennial problem of free will. Wittgenstein’s strategy proceeds by separating sense from nonsense. The realm of sense is delimited in the light of his picture theory of meaning, according to which a proposition is meaningful (or capable of expressing a fact) only if it can represent or picture a contingent state of affairs. What cannot thus be represented is consigned to silence, or as Wittgenstein famously put it at the conclusion of his book, â€Å"What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence† (proposition 7). 6 In the course of the book, however, it soon becomes clear that what can be meaningfully said are only the propositions of natural science, thereby leaving out of the realm of sense a daunting number of statements which are regularly made and used in language, including the propositions of logic, aesthetics, religion, and (most relevant for our purposes here) traditional metaphysics and ethics. But unlike the positivists, Wittgenstein does not assume that what is nonsensical is of no value. As he stated in a letter to a prospective publisher, Ludwig von Ficker: â€Å"My work consists of two parts: the one presented here plus all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the important one. †7 Further, ethical and metaphysical truths that cannot be ‘said’ or formulated in sayable (sensical) propositions can nonetheless be ‘shown’: â€Å"There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical† (6. 522). In line with this austere outlook, Wittgenstein hints in the Tractatus that the very concepts at issue in the free will debate—concepts such as ‘freedom’ and ‘responsibility’—cannot be meaningfully expressed. Although in propositions 5. 1361 (â€Å"We cannot infer the events of the future from those of the present†) and 5. 1362 (â€Å"The freedom of the will consists in the impossibility of knowing actions that still lie in the future†) he seems to reject determinism as false and to accept freedom of the will as true, rather than rejecting both as nonsensical, here we arguably have a Nick Trakakis and Daniel Cohen xv minimalist conception of free will as nothing more than ignorance or uncertainty regarding the future, as opposed to a substantive commitment to the metaphysical idea of a ‘will’ that could be free or unfree. This is confirmed in later passages where Wittgenstein takes the law of causality—the principle that every event has a cause—to be â€Å"not a law but the form of a law† (6. 32), adding a few propositions later that, â€Å"If there were a law of causality, it might be put in the following way: There are laws of nature. But of course that cannot be said: it makes itself manifest† (6. 36). The law of causality, in other words, is not itself a law of logic nor a law of nature (or an empirical generalization), nor a synthetic a priori proposition, but rather â€Å"something purely logical† (6. 3211), a vacuous principle that tells us, not something about the world, but only something about the form our thinking about the world must take. But what is formal, according to the Tractatus, can only be shown, not said. On this view, then, the law of causality, and by extension any substantial or metaphysical doctrine of determinism, cannot be affirmed or denied, but must be placed in the category of ineffability or nonsense. Similarly, the denial of determinism—viz. , indeterminism—is bound to result in nonsense. At one stroke, then, Wittgenstein seems to have dissolved the free will problem. Contemporary discussions of free will often take a similar turn. For example, concepts such as ‘free will’ and ‘moral responsibility’ are routinely rejected as internally incoherent or contradictory, or as incompatible with determinism or indeterminism (or both), and like the early Wittgenstein this result is achieved simply through a kind of armchair or a priori reflection on the conditions of possibility of free will and responsibility. A glaring instance of this is Galen Strawson’s ‘pessimist’ conclusion that free will, of the sort that is necessary for genuine moral responsibility, is impossible, for in order to have that kind of free will (according to Strawson) one would per impossible have to be the ultimate cause or origin of oneself, a sort of causa sui. But what is neglected in this procedure is attention to particulars, to the variety of ways in which concepts such as free will and responsibility function in different discourses and social practices. This, of course, is the message of the ‘later Wittgenstein’, the Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations8, which effects a fundamental change of perspective: from the realm of an idealized logical language with rigorous definitions and analyses to the vagaries of everyday life and action out of which arise the multifarious ‘language games’. The earlier reduction of language to representation is now seen as incapable of doing justice to the rich fabric of human language, and so xvi Introduction Wittgenstein famously moves from a conception of meaning as representation to a view of meaning as use: language as a kind of doing rather than a kind of picturing. We are therefore exhorted to â€Å"look and see† (PI 66) whether there is anything in common in the variety of uses to which a word is put. We cannot simply assume that words like ‘freedom’ and ‘responsibility’ must have a hidden essence, or a universally applicable meaning that can be formulated in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. Rather, we need to look to the complicated network of overlapping and criss-crossing similarities—what Wittgenstein calls ‘family resemblances’—between various words as these find expression in ordinary life and in various language games. Each language game, however, has its own unique ‘grammar’ (or network of rules which determine what linguistic or conceptual moves are allowed as making sense) and its own criteria of truth, rationality and intelligibility which may or may not be shared by other language games. What counts as freedom of the will may therefore differ widely depending on which language game is being played: freedom, for some religious believers, requires the extinction of one’s will, while for purposes of legislation freedom may be conceived of as requiring a significant degree of self-determination. Underlying this view is the rejection of the mathematical ideal of the Tractatus, typified by statements that are put forward as impersonal, unambiguous and impervious to context, and whose truth is intended to be timeless and without qualification. Language, for the later Wittgenstein, is a much more dynamic, diversified and activity-oriented phenomenon. And to be faithful to the richness and complexity of this phenomenon demands an appreciation of the bewildering and sometimes conflicting ways in which words and concepts—‘free will’ and ‘responsibility’ included—are used. It may be instructive to briefly compare (the later) Wittgenstein’s treatment of religious belief with his remarks on free will and voluntary action. Consider, for example, how Wittgenstein, in his â€Å"Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough†, responds to the phenomenon of religious diversity, to the fact that different religions seem to say different and incompatible things about (e. g. ) the nature of divine or ultimate reality and the nature and destiny of the human race: Was Augustine in error, then, when he called upon God on every page of the Confessions? But—one might say—if he was not in error, surely the Buddhist holy man was—or anyone else—whose religion gives expression to completely different views. But none of them was in error, except when he set forth a theory. 9 Nick Trakakis and Daniel Cohen xvii Against philosophers and anthropologists like James George Frazer, who construe religious doctrines as hypotheses or theories that can be confirmed or disconfirmed in light of empirical evidence, Wittgenstein views each religion as embodying a unique form of life that finds expression in language games whose ‘rules’ (relating to truth, rationality, intelligibility, and so on) may diverge quite dramatically from those of science. On this view, the various religions of the world are not in the business of constructing hypotheses and searching for evidence, and so they are not in competition with one another, at least in the way that scientific theories may vie for the mantle of verisimilitude. The problem of religious diversity is therefore dissolved. No language game, religious or otherwise, has a monopoly on truth and on the meaning of ‘truth’. Wittgenstein is thus opposed to both the religious exclusivist, who maintains that there is one religion which is privileged with respect to truth and soteriological effectiveness, and the scientistic philosopher who argues that the methods and techniques of science (perhaps construed broadly enough to include philosophy and logic) are our only reliable guide to truth. Instead, Wittgenstein places all language games on an equal footing, allowing a thousand flowers to bloom. Thus, as David Pears has perceptively pointed out, Wittgenstein’s later work has †¦an extraordinary levelling effect. It does not assimilate one kind of discourse to another: on the contrary, it is always the differences between them that are emphasized, and particularly the difference between factual discourse and the other kinds. But it does bring all the great philosophical questions which arise within them back to the same level, ordinary human life, from which philosophy started. Philosophy is the voyage out, and the voyage back, both of which are necessary if the logical space of our ordinary linguistic practices is to be understood. 10 One of these ‘great philosophical questions’ is, of course, the question of free will and moral responsibility. On this matter, as with questions to do with religious faith, Wittgenstein refused the dominance of science on modern thinking: rather than constructing systematic theories that dictate from ‘on high’—inevitably from a position that holds up science as the model for all other discourses—how the phenomena in question are to be understood, we are brought back time and again to particular facts and examples rooted in everyday language and practices. Taking such an approach to free will can produce startling results. For one thing, the belief in free will begins to look more like a religious commitment than a theoretical or scientific belief. Wittgenstein’s Kierkegaardian (or, more pejoratively, fideistic) account of religious belief is well known: xviii Introduction It strikes me that a religious belief could only be something like a passionate commitment to a system of reference. Hence, although it’s belief, it’s really a way of living, or a way of assessing life. It’s passionately seizing hold of this interpretation. 11 But his somewhat similar account of free will has received less attention, despite the ever-expanding publishing industry on free will: In the sense in which asking a question and insisting on an answer is expressive of a different attitude, a different mode of life, from not asking it, the same can be said of utterances like â€Å"It is God’s will† or â€Å"We are not masters of our fate†. The work done by this sentence, or at any rate something like it, could also be done by a command! Including one which you give yourself. 12 Life is like a path along a mountain ridge; to left and right are slippery slopes down which you slide without being able to stop yourself, in one direction or the other. I keep seeing people slip like this and I say â€Å"How could a man help himself in such a situation! † And that is what â€Å"denying free will† comes to. That is the attitude expressed in this ‘belief’. But it is not a scientific belief and has nothing to do with scientific convictions. 13 Thus, belief in free will, much like religious belief, does not purport to express an empirical fact, but is rather expressive of an attitude, a mode of life, an imperative to live in a certain way. In the two lectures he delivered at Cambridge on freedom of the will, Wittgenstein went on to characterize belief in free will as ‘groundless’, as not supported by evidence or arguments14, again indicating parallels with religious faith. To better appreciate this view of free will, one might introduce certain ideas from the Philosophical Investigations and, especially, On Certainty. 15 In the former work, Wittgenstein speaks of our beliefs as founded upon a ‘bedrock’ certainty: â€Å"If I have exhausted the justifications [for following a rule] I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: ‘This is simply what I do’† (PI 217). Similarly, in OC 341 Wittgenstein states, â€Å"the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn† (cf. OC 88). Although Wittgenstein refers here to propositions as acting as hinges, it is commonly thought that in the more mature phase of his epistemological work Wittgenstein thought of practices rather than propositions as primary. This, then, is no traditional foundationalism, where an inferential relationship is thought to obtain between the set of beliefs that comprise the foundations and the other beliefs we hold, with the former justifying the latter. Instead, for Wittgenstein what lies at the bottom or at the foundations of our language Nick Trakakis and Daniel Cohen xix games are not specific beliefs or propositions, but ‘ungrounded ways of acting’ (OC 110, 204), ‘communal practices’ (OC 128, 298), and ‘forms of life’ (OC 7, 358). It is in this spirit that Wittgenstein quotes from Goethe’s Faust: â€Å"In the beginning was the deed† (OC 402). Nonetheless, our practices and forms of life can be said to show or manifest the beliefs (or quasi-beliefs) and assumptions upon which we base our lives, including such beliefs as ‘I have two hands’ and ‘The world has existed for more than 10 minutes’. However, in opposition to G. E. Moore, Wittgenstein describes these as ‘certainties’ rather than ‘knowledge-claims’, for they are not grounded in evidence or open to verification, but express an attitude and a way of acting, and so are not true or false, reasonable or unreasonable, but simply â€Å"there—like our life† (OC 559, cf. 162, 205). It would be arguably in keeping with this epistemological account, in conjunction with the later Wittgenstein’s remarks on free will, to say that belief in free will (and moral responsibility) may also function, at least in some contexts, as one of the bedrock certainties, as one of the things that ‘stand fast for us’ in our actions and practices (cf. OC 116), or as the framework within which our ethical practices operate and are made intelligible. There are close parallels here with existentialist philosophy, where to exist as a human being and to be free (almost) come to the same thing. Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, famously stated that we are ‘condemned’ to freedom, not free not to be free. In a similar vein, the Russian religious existentialist Nikolai Berdiaev, dubbed ‘the philosopher of freedom’, eschewed traditional accounts of freedom, which treat free will as an object that could somehow be perceived, investigated and proved or disproved from the outside, and adopted instead the Kantian position that freedom is a postulate of action: it is something we must presuppose to even think of a world in which human life and human agency are possible. Wittgenstein would have been sympathetic to this outlook, for like the existentialists he is primarily concerned with concrete social and linguistic practices and seeks to provide a philosophical understanding of human existence that is not restricted to the explanatory framework of science (or even that of much traditional philosophy). For Wittgenstein, therefore, belief in free will, just as much as belief in God, is not threatened by scientific discoveries: â€Å"we couldn’t say now ‘If they discover so and so, then I’ll say I am free’. †16 In line with this view, Wittgenstein spends some time in his lectures on freedom of the will in attempting to show that even if a deterministic account of the world were demanded by our best scientific theories, belief in free will need not be affected at all. 17 But he is not thereby putting forward a case for compatibilism: â€Å"All these arguments xx Introduction might look as if I wanted to argue for the freedom of the will or against it. But I don’t want to. †18 Wittgenstein does not follow the traditional course of attempting to resolve the free will problem by proving one position or refuting another. His aim, as with other traditional philosophical problems, is to expose the problem as some kind of deep muddle or confusion arising largely from misunderstandings of the workings of language. One recurrent criticism of this view is that it appears to render the language games of science, religion, and ethics entirely self-contained and cut off from each other, if not also immune from criticism from ‘without’. This, indeed, is a common misconception of the Wittgensteinian account of religion, and in response Wittgensteinians such as D. Z. Phillips have emphasized the many important connections between religious and nonreligious forms of life which (it is held) must be recognized if religious belief is not to degenerate into superstition. Similarly, Wittgenstein points out that scientific discoveries may have a bearing on ascriptions of free will: â€Å"A discovery might influence what you say on the freedom of the will. If only by directing your attention in a particular way. †19 But despite these connections between the scientific and non-scientific domains, Wittgenstein insists that the distinctiveness of each language game must not be overlooked. In particular, the languages of ethics and religion must not be assimilated to the kind of fact-stating discourse and fact-finding activities that characterize the empirical sciences.