Discussion Questions Essay Example for Free

Discussion Questions Essay DQ #1: Select a small business that you may want to start. What is strategic management and planning? Why would a strategic plan be important to the success of this business? How are the four functions of management relative to creating and implementing a strategic plan? I want to start an e-commerce sales business. The strategic management and planning guidelines for this kind of business include the following: Planning As an owner, I will analyze the direction the organization will go and create core objectives for the business. The objectives will help the company stay on track and assist in any unexpected developments that may arise down the road and short-term and long-term goals are designed. Organizing We will analyze our resources and determine the volume of products to purchase and the individual cost to generate profits. We will also review how many employees will be needed. Directing Our managers will be tasked with the responsibility of encouraging positive behavior from employees to create production that leads to higher profitable margins. Managers will implement a reward system for consistent high producers. Controlling The entire team will survey the operation and gauge areas that may require improvements or adjustments to maximize sales volumes. The team will also use the same goals and objectives that were previously established to review any issues or concerns and confirm that any negative feedback that may have been received is addressed. A strategic plan would be very necessary and important for this business to solidify a position in the e-commerce industry where customers can shop for quality products and the company will earn profits, while instilling great customer service. The four functions of management are relative to creating and implementing a strategic plan so all areas are balanced and functioning in conjunction with the expectations of the business. DQ #2: What is the difference between mission and vision statements? What factors must be considered to produce an appropriate mission and vision statement for an organization? Vision and mission statements various phrases that a company uses to describe or state their values, direction, integrity position, beliefs and style. The difference between the vision and mission statement is that the mission statement defines the purpose, goals and objectives of a business. The mission statement also explains the impact the business will have on the community. The vision statement speaks more to the values of the organization, explains the purpose of the achievements, and outlines how things should be done as the goals and objectives are being followed. In order to produce an appropriate mission and vision statement the business should focus on elements that build trust among potential consumers that will help them to understand the primary facets from which the business plans to operate. Some key variables are the quality of products and services that will be delivered, the contribution to the community, and the ethical position that will be the foundation of good business behaviors

Why Do People Record Their Private Lives and Make It Public Essay Example for Free

Why Do People Record Their Private Lives and Make It Public Essay Anything and everything that a person posts on the internet and in the media becomes public for anyone to see. Many people in our world today enjoy putting their private lives in public. What’s the point of having a â€Å"private† life if you want to make it public to the rest of the world? There are many social media and networking websites that encourage putting everything about one’s life in public. This can range from video recording our private lives and putting it on YouTube, to writing our biographies on Facebook, to blogging about our daily lives on blogging websites such as Tumblr, Xanga, or Blogspot. This subject can even extend to celebrities and why they put their private lives on television through reality TV shows such as Keeping Up with the Kardashians, The Real Housewives of Orange County, Laguna Beach, or The Real World. With the way that people are presenting their private lives in the media, it is obvious that people are doing this to show off their skills and talents, entertain people, make them more known and popular/become famous, or they want to influence others to do the same and follow their footsteps. As social beings we strive for recognition as well as acceptance from the society that surrounds us. Before the concept of social media via the internet, we aspired to be recognized or to be known by simple word of mouth. However, as the world around us changed, our methods of self expression became easier to spread which led to a wider audience for acknowledgement world-wide due to the accessibility of the computer. With the invention of the computer and the technological advancements of the internet, we see that anyone, anywhere can see what someone is doing, eating, or where we are the moment with which people. Youtube There are over 490 million users on the YouTube website today and there are thousands that still join daily according to the YouTube website. The point of YouTube is so that people can post videos of whatever they want online. Many users on YouTube like posting vlogs, which are video blogs about their days. People also post videos of themselves doing their special talents such as singing, dancing, telling jokes, giving advice, etc. I think many people join YouTube and do this to help them become more known and popular to eventually become famous. In an interview, YouTube user Tramy Nguyen, said â€Å"I joined YouTube and post videos up of significant events that I want to be able to look back on. I like to share my memorable events with people who were not able to attend to experience it with me. † Some people like Tramy post videos for the purpose of sharing memories, however, many other people also record and post videos to get attention. Justin Bieber is someone who got famous by posting videos of him singing at home and was founded through YouTube by the singer, song writer, and producer, Usher Raymond. There are also many people who are considered as â€Å"YouTube famous†. These people get money off of creating and posting videos on YouTube of them singing covers of songs, telling jokes, or even giving advice. The website Worldstarhiphop. com has videos posted of others fighting to get attention. Although the objective of this website was â€Å"a home for entertainment and hip-hop† it is now known as a website for others to watch fights and people getting beat up for entertainment. Above is a picture of the statistics of YouTube. Blogging Websites There are many people in the world that have online blogs from websites such as Xanga, Tumblr, and Blogspot. When it comes to online blogs, I think that people like to write about their days and treat their blogs like diaries. It is ironic that people like to keep online diaries about what goes on in their lives and what they are thinking because people like to keep journals and diaries private. It is understandable that with technology growing and expanding all around us, it is more convenient to type out our thoughts about our days and what goes on in our lives on a computer instead of writing it in a book. However, it does not make sense to be writing it online for everyone to see if you want it to be a like a private online diary. A user of Tumblr, Steven Casner, said â€Å"Blogging was like a way for me to escape reality and allow myself to fall into my own world. When I first created my online blog I wouldnt think anyone would read it. † Though people think that no one would read or find what they write on the internet, it is very easy to search these blogs up with the technology that we have today. Reality Television Reality Television is another way that people put their private lives in public. The show MTV Cribs has celebrities give tours of their homes and gives the celebrities a chance to show off their belongings and how wealthy they are. The hit show on the television network, E! , called Keeping up with the Kardashians is a show about the Kardashian family who are famous because one of the Kardashian sisters is a model. The show is basically just a camera that follows the family members around while they live their daily lives. If there was a camera following a person around all day and every day, how would that person get any privacy in their lives? The reason that this family lets cameras follow them around all day and show people how their lives are is just another way for them to boost their family’s name and get money. There are also shows like the Bachelor where people go on to find love. Can a person really find love with another person while knowing that there are other people watching their every move and know everything that goes on in their relationship? There are also shows like Maury and Jerry Springer where people go on the show to solve the drama that they may have in their lives. If you and a loved one have drama in your lives, you should probably go see a therapist about your problems instead of making it open to the public. Many times, making your problems public will make your problems worse than they already are. Facebook Facebook has become a huge phenomenon since it first started. Facebook is a social networking website where people can add their friends and family members and communicate and connect with them online by writing to them, sharing photos or videos with them, or just updating everyone they are friends with about what is going on in their lives. On Facebook, one can see a person’s biography, where a person is from, where they work or go to school, their birthdays, their emails, their phone numbers, their likes and dislikes, their backgrounds such as race, ethnicity, religion, etc. Once a person puts all of this information about themselves online, it will automatically be available to anyone on the internet, especially with the special technology that we have in our world today. I think that people in our world who have Facebooks have them because it is an easier way to contact and update their friends and family about what is going on in their lives. On Facebook, you can post status updates about how you are feeling, what you are thinking, etc for other to see. After interviewing Facebook user, Lea Abadies, she said, â€Å"I joined Facebook because I wanted a medium where I could keep in touch with my friends and see what they are up to and what is going on in their lives. I also want them to be kept up with what is going on in my life. I’m not going to lie, I also joined Facebook because it seemed like everyone has a Facebook so I gave in to the peer pressure of making an account. After interviewing Lea, I came to the conclusion that many people act upon the fact that â€Å"everyone else† is doing that act also and just give into the pressures of society. Live Streaming Websites Another way that people have a chance of putting their private lives in the public is through live streaming websites where you can stream yourself and let people watch you do whatever it is you want to do online. Websites like Tinychat. com and Blogtv. com allow users to stream themselves from their webcam and allow strangers from all around the world to watch their channel live. Many times, people use these websites so that they can just talk to random strangers because they might be bored or trying to kill some of their free time. By streaming their lives online, it may be very risky because any of the strangers who are watching you could be stalkers, pedophiles, or any other kinds of creeps in the world. By studying even just the environment that one is in while they are streaming, the so-called â€Å"creeps† could find out where you are from, what you like, or whatever else they want to know about that person which can really put the person streaming their personal lives online in danger. This also relates to people who post videos of their lives on YouTube because random people can access your video and study your environment and try hunting down the person who posted the video. This picture is a screenshot of the website Blogtv. com. You can see how many people are currently watching you, how many people are currently streaming, and how many people are currently online on the website. Twitter is another social networking website that many people like to share what they are currently up to or what they are thinking.  With twitter, you are able to have followers and follow others to see what they are currently doing. Many people update their twitters every hour just to let people know what is going on in their lives. Celebrities also use Twitter as another way to connect with their fans. I think people use twitter to update their friends about what is going on with their lives so that their friends would not have to go out of their way in asking and take the time to stay updated in a person’s life because they may have a lot of friends or followers. People do not think about the factors in putting such private information about their lives on the internet and how it may affect them in the future. The fact that everything on the internet is so public, it is very easy to search up anything with the high tech search engines that we have online such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Many times when people apply for jobs or internships, they do not realize that many job places like to do background checks online to see if they can find anything about the applicant that may enhance or lower their chances of getting that certain job. This also happens with schools or anything else in the professional field that people may want to do a special background check for. With technology growing, many people are using it to make their lives become more open to the public. Many people like to do this for the attention and also to share their hobbies or talents to others in the world. There are many different ways that people use to make their lives public whether it be through online blogging, online live streaming, social networking websites, and even reality television. Our world is turning into more of a liberal world instead of a conservative one when it comes to privacy.

Caring for People with Intellectual Disabilities

Caring for People with Intellectual Disabilities 2.2 Example of causes of intellectual disability that occur during or immediately following birth and describe 2 main characteristics of the effects. Example 1: Prematurity and low birth weight predict serious problems more often than any other conditions. Difficulties in the birth process such as temporary oxygen deprivation cause intellectual disability. Source: The Arc for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities . (n.d.). Retrieved from www.thearc.org/page.aspx?pid=2453. Main characteristics: The main characteristic of low birth baby is that they may have breathing problems. If the baby is born to soon there is a great chance that the baby’s lungs will be underdeveloped because of that they may have problems in receiving oxygen. The baby may also have trouble in maintaining a normal body temperature and they may become hypothermic( too cold) Example 2: Trauma: It occurs because of serious injury. We can say a serious shock to the body due to violence or accident. Source: AAIDD American Association on Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://aaidd.org/docs/default-source/events/harvey-trauma-8-15.pdf. Main characteristics: They may have difficulties in concentration due to painful memories or thoughts. They may face difficulty in sleep. Because of that they feel tired. 2.3 Give two examples of causes of intellectual disability that occur during childhood years and describe the impact on the day to day support needs of the person. Example 2: Meningitis: meningitis is the inflammation of the meninges, the covering of the brain and spinal cord. It is most of caused by infection but can also be produced by chemical irritation, subarachnoid, cancer and other conditions. Bacterial meningitis may result in brain damage, hearing loss, learning disabilities, behaviour changes, high fever, sensitivity to light and confusion. Source: WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.who.int/topics/meningitis/en/. Task 3: Describe condition frequently associated with the intellectual disability. Condition 1: Foetal Alcohol Syndrome Cause: Foetal Alcohol Syndrome is growth, physical and mental problems. It mainly affects the baby when a mother consumes alcohol during her pregnancy. Source: WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION Bulletin of the World Health Organization. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/6/11-020611/en/. Physical support: provide them loving, nurturing and stable home life. However children with foetal alcohol syndrome have harmful relationship, therefore early diagnoses have more positive outcome.it also help the family members to understand the reaction and behaviour of the child. Assist them with daily living activities like showering, toileting, dressing and feeding. Provide them physiotherapy so they can make their muscle strong. Regular medical check-up is also helpful to maintain their health. Social support: As the children with foetal alcohol syndrome are very hyperactive. Behaviour management training is very useful for them. This will help them to learn about manners and how they can release their stress. they may have difficulty to interact with different people so provide them opportunities for friendship. Take them out and involve them into social activities. Cognitive support: Provide them education about good behaviour. Provide them planned and reasonable methods to education.so that they can improve their ability to think more effectively. Provide them educational opportunity like they can join some educational programme where they can learn new skills. Condition 2: Autism Causes: no study has found the exact cause of autism but the researchers has pointed out few possible factors which includes genetic (heredity), metabolic or neurological factors, infections and problems during birth. Source: World Health Organization. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.who.int/features/qa/85/en/. Physical support: The person with autism may find difficulties in activities of daily living. They may find difficulties in showering, toileting, dressing, undressing and feeding. We can help them to do their personal care and in feeding. We can provide occupational therapy for them.it will help them to manage their stress and they can feel relax. We can also help them to set their routine. Social support: they may have difficulty to interact with different people so provide them opportunities for friendship. Take them out and involve them in different activities like social club or offer specific advice about interaction. Help them to learn social rules using logic like how they have to talk and behave with others, manners and body language. Cognitive support: we can provide them speech and language therapy it will help them to learn speech and language skills.so that they can speak clearly. Parent and family member can learn how to play and interact with their child in way that permote cognitive skill. We can provide them some mind games like bingo or quiz so that they can use their mind.it will help them to think logically. Condition 3: Prader – Willi Syndrome CAUSE: Prader – Willi Syndrome is caused by a gene missing on part of chromosome 15. Basically, parents release a copy of this chromosome. In most cases patients with prader – willi syndrome have missing the genetic material on part of the father chromosome. Other patients with this problem have two pairs of the mother’s chromosome 15. Source: Main characteristics: Children with Prader- willi syndrome may have poor muscle tone. They may feel floppy or rag dolls when they are held.Elbows and knees loosely extended due to poor muscles tone instead of stable. People with Prader willi syndrome may have different facial feature. They may have almond shaped eyes, a narrowing of the head at the temple and turned down mouth etc. Motor development often delays with this syndrome. They may have delay in sitting up and walking. they also have speech delay problem. Physical support: Children with prader willi syndrome are at higher risk of developing fatness or size due to excessive eating. The proper weight management can be helpful for them to maintain their weight. If they want to eat more and more distract their mind by giving them other activities like music, games. Set an exercise plan so that they can become strong. Social support: we can provide social support to the children/person with prader willi syndrome. We can take them out or take them in interesting places. Where they can engage with other people and can connect with them socially. We have to give them some activities that are not related to food so that they cannot concentrate only on food. Encourage them to join some support clubs. there are many clubs who support to the children with this syndrome. They help them to interact socially with people and help them to manage their diet. Cognitive support: provide them education. They might have speech problem and learning problems. Provide them a speech therapist so that they can learn some speech skills. Educate them about managing their own diet and how they can make a routine about their regular diet.

Teaching Status Report :: Teaching Education Essays

Teaching Status Report My experiences at Dunn middle school are quite different then I had originally anticipated. All of the research I did on the school itself and what I heard from others about their experiences prepared me for the worst. What I ended up with was a classroom full of eager young students to learn. They may not be eager to learn the basics, math, science, history, etc. However, they are eager to find out new things. My job now is to make sure that I incorporate the basics into what they want to learn or vice versa. The students in my classroom each have a unique personality, no two are even similar, but every one of them is interesting and has potential to be great learners and people. I was expecting to walk into a room full of out of control hoodlums. I expected there to be things thrown across the room, the boys all dressed in gang colors, and the girls dressed like Beyonce with stomachs hanging out. During my first few days of observation I learned that the students respected the teacher. This was very relieving because I knew that the students would quickly learn to respect me as a teacher and an adult. My cooperating teacher was very encouraging and has helped us to learn a lot about the classroom. He is a very strict teacher and puts up with no nonsense. However, he if you follow his rules he will ease up and allow some sliding. His teaching style is very different then mine is. He likes to have the kids write on the board and teaches most of his classes from his seat in front of his desk. I don’t know that this is the wrong way to teach, it is simple different then my personal style. I am a very energetic person and want to share my energy and passions with the students. I like to get up and walk around the class and get the kids excited about the lesson at hand. As far as discipline goes I really think that I can learn a great deal from my co-op.

My Invisible Gay Culture Essay -- First Person Narrative Examples

   Unlike an African American because of their skin color, or an Asian because of their distinctive features, or even an Australian because of their accent, my culture is invisible. When I walk into a room my culture is not, from my appearance, apparent to others. The dialect of my culture is not orally distinctive. For the majority of my life, thus far, my own family was unaware of who I am and what I believe my culture to be. Yet, as secretive as this may seem, I still share my culture with millions of invisible others. We partake in days of celebration, moments of fear, the hatred of a nation, but the love of a community. We are men, women, liberal, conservative, Hispanic, Jewish, black, atheist, Christian, republican, democrat, pro-life, and pro-choice. We live in every neighborhood, in every city, of every country all around the world. I myself am white, female and English (with some German flair that I get from my stepfather). I have values, dreams, convictions, and disappointment s all my own, as does each person within this culture. The only common denominator shared between everyone in my culture is that we are all GAY.    My high school was newly built school and had every modem accessory available. The school had an auditorium large enough to front a Broadway play and a swimming pool grand enough for the summer Olympics. What it lacked was diversity. My graduating class of 1988 had one African American and one Asian. That's it. No Hispanics or Native Americans. But, my sophomore year I discovered that within the walls of our school existed several "invisible others."    Our school had a news crew that investigated stories and then brought them to the student body every week. One afternoon while I was watching ... ...redity, prenatal development, childhood experiences, and cultural worlds in varying combinations. It is not what identifies me, but it is a blanket of understanding of who I am.    When asked by a fellow student what my culture was I said that I would be writing about my gay culture. They responded with a jealous, "Wow, You're lucky. You'll have a lot to write about." Am I lucky? I was able to write about persecution, exile, imprisonment and murder. I was able to draw from my own experience of fear, oppression and uncertainty. But this is all history, the past. Gay and Lesbian people first demanded the right to be left alone, and then more recently, the right to be included, their love and relationships accepted and validated. This is the future and what I fight for daily as I live my life with confidence and pride. So yes, that person was right. I am lucky.

Hinduism :: essays research papers

Hinduism hinduism The term Hinduism refers to the civilization of the Hindus (originally, the inhabitants of the land of the Indus River). Introduced in about 1830 by British writers, it properly denotes the Indian civilization of approximately the last 2,000 years, which evolved from Vedism the religion of the Indo-European peoples who settled in India in the last centuries of the 2nd millennium BC. The spectrum that ranges from the level of popular Hindu belief to that of elaborate ritual technique and philosophical speculation is very broad and is attended by many stages of transition and varieties of coexistence. Magic rites, animal worship, and belief in demons are often combined with the worship of more or less personal gods or with mysticism, asceticism, and abstract and profound theological systems or esoteric doctrines. The worship of local deities does not exclude the belief in pan-Indian higher gods or even in a single high God. Such local deities are also frequently looked down up on as manifestations of a high God. In principle, Hinduism incorporates all forms of belief and worship without necessitating the selection or elimination of any. It is axiomatic that no religious idea in India ever dies or is superseded-it is merely combined with the new ideas that arise in response to it. Hindus are inclined to revere the divine in every manifestation, whatever it may be, and are doctrinally tolerant, allowing others - including both Hindus and non-Hindus - whatever beliefs suit them best. A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu, and because Hindus are disposed to think synthetically and to regard other forms of worship, strange gods, and divergent doctrines as inadequate rather than wrong or objectionable, they tend to believe that the highest divine powers are complement one another. Few religious ideas are considered to be irreconcilable. The core of religion does not depend on the existence or nonexistence of God or on whether th ere is one god or many. Because religious truth is said to transcend all verbal definition, it is not conceived in dogmatic terms. Moreover, the tendency of Hindus to distinguish themselves from others on the basis of practice rather than doctrine further de-emphasizes doctrinal differences. Hinduism is both a civilization and a congregation of religions; it has neither a beginning or founder, nor a central authority, hierarchy, or organization. Hindus believe in an uncreated, eternal, infinite, transcendent, and all-embracing principle, which, comprising in itself being and non-being, is the sole reality, the ultimate cause and foundation, source, and goal of all existence.

AQA AS Philosophy Reason and Experience Key Points Essay

†¢There are different types of knowledge: acquaintance, ability and propositional knowledge. Theories of knowledge discussed here are about propositional knowledge. †¢Knowledge is not the same as belief. Beliefs can be mistaken, but no-one can know what is false. †¢Knowledge is not the same as true belief, either. True beliefs may not be justified, but can be believed without evidence. To be knowledge, a belief must be justified. †¢Rationalism claims that we can have synthetic a priori knowledge of how things are outside the mind. †¢Empiricism denies this. It claims that all a priori knowledge is only of analytic propositions. Do all ideas derive from sense experience? †¢Locke argues that the mind at birth is a ‘tabula rasa’ – there are no innate ideas, which Locke defines as ideas present in the mind from birth. †¢Locke argues that there is no truth that everyone, including idiots and children, assents to – so no truth is innate. †¢Rationalists define innate ideas as ideas (concepts or propositions) whose content can’t be gained from experience, but which are triggered by experience. †¢Locke and Hume argue that all concepts are derived from sense experience, from impressions of sensation or reflection. †¢They claim that simple concepts are copies of impressions; complex concepts are created out of simple concepts by combining and abstracting them. †¢One argument for innate concepts is to challenge the empiricist to show how a particular complex or abstract concepts, for example, a physical object, is supposed to be derived from experience. If it cannot be, and it is used by children, then this is a reason to think it is innate. Are all claims about what exists ultimately grounded in and justified by sense experience? †¢Hume argues that all a priori knowledge is of relations of ideas, and so analytic. All knowledge of synthetic propositions, matters of fact, is a posteriori. It depends either on present experience or causal inference, which relies on past experience. †¢Our knowledge of matters of fact that relies on induction can only be probably – never proven. †¢Some rationalists, for example, Descartes, try to show that we can use a priori intuition and deductive argument to demonstrate what exists. †¢The core of the idea of rational intuition is that you can ‘see’ the truth of a claim just by thinking about it. †¢Descartes argues that sense experience on its own cannot establish what exists – how can we know that all sense experience is not a deception cause by an evil demon? †¢He argues that he cannot doubt his own existence, and that the mind can exist without the body. †¢Descartes argues for the existence of the physical world by first arguing for the existence of God. From God not being a deceiver, it follow that our sense experience in general can’t be completely mistaken – so they physical world exists. Conceptual schemes and their philosophical implications †¢Thinkers who defend the idea of conceptual schemes often argue that there are two distinguishable elements to our experience – the data of the sense, and then the interpretation of these data by a set of concepts. †¢Some argue that human beings have formulated different conceptual scheme which are not translatable into each other. From the same sense experience, they form different views of the world. †¢Because we must use concepts to formulate truths, we can argue that truths are relative to conceptual schemes. Or more accurately, some truths can only be stated in certain conceptual schemes and not others, and there is no one conceptual scheme which we can use to state all truths. Do all ideas derive from sense experience? II †¢One objection to the empiricist theory of the origin of concepts is that there are some complex concepts, for example, knowledge and beauty that cannot be analysed in terms of simpler concepts. †¢A second objection is that some simple ideas, for example, a particular shade of blue, don’t have to be derived from sense impressions. Empiricists can respond in two ways: all ideas could be derived from sense experience’ or some ideas are exceptions to the rule that all ideas are derived from sense experience, but these exceptions are derived from ideas that are derived from sense experience. †¢Another objection is that it is not possible to derive any concepts from experience, because in order to form concepts, we must make judgements of similarity and difference to classify experiences. But we can only make these judgements if we already have the concepts. †¢Defenders of innate ideas maintain that we innately have very specific capacities for forming particular ideas, and these ideas count as innate. †¢Suggestions for the origin of innate ideas include evolution, God, and a previous existence. Are all claims about what exists ultimately grounded in and justified by sense experience? II †¢Rationalists claim that we have synthetic a priori knowledge either innately or through rational intuition †¢Plato argues that many particular objects can have the same property, for example, beauty. These properties can exist independently of the particular objects, as shown by the fact that is we destroy all beautiful things, we haven’t destroyed beauty. These properties are instances of the Forms. †¢Plato argues that innate concepts are our knowledge of the Forms, from a previous existence. Unless we had such innate memories, we wouldn’t be able to classify experience using concepts. †¢Descartes argues that he cannot doubt his existence. We can object that he cannot know he exists; only that thoughts exist. †¢Descartes also argues that the mind can exist without the body. We can object that just because he can conceive that this is possible doesn’t show that this is possible. †¢Both these arguments and the objections use a priori reasoning. Hume objects that a priori reasoning can only establish analytic truths. †¢Nietzsche argues that reasoning is not, in fact, something independent that reveals the truth, but is grounded on assumptions about value. Metaphysical theories are the result of attempts to defend a particular way of understanding the world, one that rests on the false assumption that good and bad are opposites. †¢The verification principle claims that a statement only has meaning if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable. However, the principle itself is neither analytic nor empirically verifiable. †¢Rationalists argue that mathematics is an example of synthetic a priori knowledge. Empiricists argue that mathematics is analytic. Is certainty confined to introspection and the tautological? †¢Descartes argues that what we can doubt is not certain enough to be knowledge. However, we can argue that certainty and justification are not the same thing, and that while knowledge needs to be justified, we need an argument to show that it must be certain. †¢Certainty can refer to a subjective feeling, to a proposition being necessarily true or to the impossibility of doubting a proposition. †¢Empiricists claim that analytic truth is the only kind of necessary truth. Rationalists argue that there are synthetic a priori truths that are also necessary. †¢A necessary truth is certain. Claims about mental state, based on introspection, may also be certain for the person whose mental states they are. †¢Whether any other claims are certain depend on whether there are necessary synthetic a priori truths. Conceptual schemes and their philosophical implications II †¢Kant argues that experience is of objects, and asks how it is possible for experience to be intelligible in this way, not a confused buzz. †¢He answers that what makes experience possible are certain concepts, which he calls categories. These categories together express the ‘pure thought of an object’. †¢One such category is causality. This enables us to distinguish the temporal order of our perceptions from the temporal order of objects. †¢Kant argues that to talk of concepts interpreting sensation is misleading. Our sensory experience is always already conceptualised as experience of objects. †¢Two implications of Kant’s theory are that the structure of the everyday world of objects is defined by our a priori concepts; and that we cannot know anything about how reality is completely independent of how we think of it.