The Brothers Karamazov: III. The Foundation of Morality

In a previous post, I formulated Dostoevsky’s argument that belief in God is necessary for morality from an ontological perspective. In this post, I’ll formulate it from an epistemological perspective. I’ll demonstrate that knowledge of God is the foundation of morality, following the method of René Descartes. Foundation of Knowledge In his Meditations, Descartes reasoned that ideas formed within our mind have their origin beyond our mind, that is, our ideas are […]

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“Beyond Good and Evil” by Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche as Monkey King With a philosopher nothing at all is impersonal. As an armchair Platonist, I had a personal aversion to Nietzsche, whose whole purpose in life seemed to be to overthrow Platonism. After reading “Beyond Good and Evil”, however, my attitude changed from aversion to pity, that is, pity in the Nietzschean sense. To illustrate my view of Nietzsche and his relation to Plato, let me introduce a […]

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