Topical Blog Week #3 (Due Thursday)

John Locke was a philosopher born in Bristol, England in 1632. Locke was the son of a very successful lawyer. He was a very intelligent young man and got a scholarship to attend Oxford. While at Oxford, Locke became the apprentice of another great philosopher, also mentioned in great detail in our reading, Descartes. His relationship with Descartes sparked an interest in science and medicine. He later went on in 1659 to being teaching rhetoric and Greek at Oxford. He also being to study medicine in the year of 1666, but did not graduate with a degree in medicine until 1674 because he did not agree with the graduation requirements of the University. (This is interesting considering he was the man to have some of the first thoughts about how the education system should work). His work as a philosopher began shortly thereafter, while he was living in exile in Holland due to a political situation in England. He first published philosophical documents in 1693, which were the letters to a friend of his about his thoughts on education.

Some of his philosophical work after this point I find very interesting. The first was about the “act of knowing”. John Locke believed that everyone is born with no knowledge. Every person born to this earth is born with a blank mind, which is carved into throughout their lives. I’m not sure if I completely agree with this, as I believe that some people are genetically intelligent. I think that it’s more of a combination of Nature and Nurture, not so much Nature vs. Nurture. Another philosophical view of Locke’s is “Religious Toleration”. He believed that no religion has the right to claim that they “KNOW” their religion is the truth. I completely agree with this view because there are so many religions in this world that people should be more open minded. (Extremely religious people in my opinion are some of the most close minded people on this planet). The next contribution of Locke’s might be one of the most relevant to our lives in the United States: “Political Democracy.” Locke believed that the government is responsible for the protection of ALL of it’s citizens. He also believed in a “government of the people.” Democracy is just that, a government “of the people, by the people.” Although we do not live in a “true” democracy, our country is very close. A “true” democracy would be every person voting on every issue. In a country of our size, this would not be possible; therefore we elect representatives to represent the area in which we live.

The next part of his philosophy is the educational contributions. John Locke believed that the purpose of education was to “provide an individual with a sound mind, and a sound body, better to serve their country.” He believed that the content of the education really depended on where the particular individual was in life. He believed that education was one of the most important parts of society, because an individual must “serve their country as a leader.” His theories that I have learned about are very interesting and really paint a portrait of the time in which he lived. For example, his theories also use the wording “the education of a gentleman.” This shows how women at the time were not being educated as men were. His theories also talked a lot about how education was multifaceted. For example, education is not simply how much you know, but also how you decide to act in society. In my understanding of his theories, I would agree with this and interpret it in the following way: Intelligence isn’t only what you know. This is exactly what is wrong with our education system today. Just because an individual can’t score high on a standardized test, does that mean that they aren’t intelligent? Also, someone could be very intelligent in one subject area, but have no knowledge of another.

There are some views from John Locke that I do not agree with, but there are others that I do. I chose to further research this topic because I have a strong opinion on what is really considered intelligence. I was also interested in how exactly education became what it is today. Although education systems are different across the world (I lived in Germany for a while, and the way the school systems are set up are MUCH different than here in the United States.) This relates to our chapter because the philosophy of John Locke was discussed in detail. Education is a very important thing in our society (and other developed countries) and is the topic of many political debates.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/
-This website gave me a solid explanation of his philosophical and political views.

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/agexed/aee501/locke.html
This website gave a overview of his life, as well as some of his theories.

http://www.egs.edu/library/john-locke/biography/
Shared further biological information and views

Locke’s principle of virtue is said to be first introduced when a child is in the early-childhood age. He said that this is because their mind is still young, and able to retain this kind of information and project it into their behavior. At the same time, he also extends this thought to the importance of parenting, and that a parent should resist from babying their child because it will allow them to think that it’s okay and expected for them to give into their desires and totally ignore any reason. He also says that parents shouldn’t beat/ punish their children, nor reward them for doing the right thing again because of their needing to learn reason and not give in to immediate desires. I don’t fully agree with this point, because I believe that by rewarding a child for doing good gives them motivation to continue to do good when the child is young. They learn that these are the acceptable behaviors at a young age, and I believe they will, for the most part, continue to carry out these acceptable behaviors into the world with them as they get older.
He also continues his theory saying that education shouldn’t be considered a duty or task, but that it should be considered pleasant so the child won’t dread doing so. A good example he had given is comparing children’s education to toys. A child never considers playing with toys as a task or duty as opposed to education, therefore implying that playing with toys is pleasant. If a child enjoys learning as much as a child loves toys, learning will be much more effective and instilled in the child’s head because they want it to, not because they have to.
Locke understood that a child’s mental capacity is unique to their own, and that instead a program should be developed in order to correspond with children’s “natural genious.” He did also state children’s basis for intelligence is based on experiences and education, not inherent intellect, backing up his belief that every child’s capacity to learn is different based on the different education and experiences children have.

http://social.jrank.org/pages/375/Locke-John-1632-1704.html
Used for background information as well as explanations behind his theory of education

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1692locke-education.asp
Used for background information and reasons why he had produced his theory as well as his written letter

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/lockethoughts/themes.html
Used for interpreting his points within his theory

A topic I wanted learn more about was the life of John Locke and the contributions he made. He was born August 29th, 1632 in England and lived to become perhaps one of the most influential people of the 17 century. He spent most of his adult life as lecturer and tutor at Oxford. He also lived the life of a philosopher with a political and diplomatic career. Locke also studied medicine, but rarely practiced as a physician because he was more interested in the scientific aspect of it. Throughout his lifetime he witnessed many historic events, which include the English Civil War, the execution of one king and the overthrow of another, a fire that destroyed two-thirds of London, and a political alliance that led him to flee England and find safety in Holland. Out of all these experiences Locke developed a liberal political philosophy.

Locke is important to psychology due to the concepts found in two of his books, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Some Thoughts Concerning Education. The first title explains Locke’s views on how knowledge is acquired and the second title is based on a series of letters to a friend and explains how empiricist thinking could be applied to all aspects of a child’s education. Locke rejected Desecrates theory of innate ideas and claimed the mind is an empty sheet of “white paper” at birth. Locke believed that ideas were created by our experiences in life through two sources: sensation and reflection. Locke’s views about experience lead him to his beliefs about education. His beliefs about education show a strong correlation with twentieth-century behaviorism. Like modern behaviorists Locke believed that the environment can directly shape the mind and behavior and that you can tell a lot about an individual if you know something about the person’s experiences in life. These realizations were far beyond Locke’s time and behaviorists still turn to these beliefs today, which is an indication of how advanced Lock was from an intellectual standpoint.

Locke also wrote and developed the philosophy that there was no legitimate government under the divine right of kings theory. The Divine Right of Kings theory claimed that God chose some people to rule on earth in his will. Therefore, whatever the monarch decided was the will of God. This means that if you criticized the ruler, you were virtually challenging God. This was a very powerful philosophy during Locke’s era. However, Locke did not believe in that and wrote his theory to challenge it. Perhaps the part of Locke's writing which most influenced the founding fathers of the United States Constitution was the idea that the power to govern was obtained from the permission of the people.

All in all, my findings on Locke were interesting and I firmly believe he was one of the most influential individuals of the seventh century, especially in England. Not all of his theories and beliefs proved to hold true, but that’s not what is important. What is important is that he had the intellectual ability to challenge his peers and the thinkers before him and come up with his own beliefs and theories. He was also willing to challenge the beliefs of the government and in a sense his philosophy towards government had hand in shaping our American government, which is a topic that is interesting in itself. There are endless things to be said about John Locke, but one thing is for sure, he is definitely a contributor to the history of psychology.

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/biographies/john-locke/
- Gave a brief biography of Locke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke
- Helped explain some of Locke’s political theory
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/
- Information regarding the Limits of Human Understanding and education

The topic from this chapter that I want to talk about is the effects of punishment on children. This fits into the chapter where it talked about Locke arguing against the use of punishment. I am interested in this topic because it is very controversial. Many people have different opinions on this subject, could depend on how they themselves were raised as children. Punishment and redirecting discipline are two different things.
Punishment is like penalties, physical, or verbal. Punishment examples would include taking something away from the child, spankings, or shaming the child. It can make a child feel bad about them. Punishment produces fear in children. Children can start to fear for their: possessions, privileges, preferences, and safety. They may be scared that their things are going to be taken away, preferences will be used against them, and privileges taken away. Sometimes with punishment children don’t actually learn why the behavior is wrong. As well as how it could be affecting others in a negative way. If children think they are “bad” they are more likely to act “bad.” Corporal punishment is still widely used.
Disciplining and redirecting children to a better behavior can give them a sense of responsibility, self-confidence, and decide what is and what is not an appropriate behavior isn’t. One technique could be the “Fresh Start” technique. For instance if a child is having what a parent or caregiver sees as an undesirable behavior, such as fighting over a toy with another child and the child ends up throwing it at the other, the child could have a fresh start. It’s sort of like a time out where the child takes a few minute break and then starts fresh with a new toy.
From the book, Locke believed that “a child who is beaten for not doing lessons soon comes to dislike learning.” As punishment could lower the unwanted behaviors in a child, continued harsh punishments could give the child fear and low self-esteem.

http://www.kidsdevelopment.co.uk/effectsofpunishmentonchildren.html
Talked about punishments and how it can bring on fear.
http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/350/350-111/350-111.html
If a child thinks he or she is “bad” they are more likely to act “bad.” It also talked about why punishment doesn’t work.
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2002/06/spanking.aspx
Talked about how corporal punishment is still widely used.

So the topic that intrigued me most from this chapter is the man Rene Descartes. He lived in the early 1600s and was a major contributor to modern philosophy as well as to the scientific revolution. The concepts he discovered became some of the basis for sciences today including psychology. The book describes Descartes as a man who spent most of his time traveling; learning everything that he could from his experiences. This picture is backed by most of the information that I found about Descartes. He described his youth as a time when he traveled as far as he could go, experiencing as much as he could. He did not accept written word but relied more on knowledge found inside himself and in the world around him. After each and every thing that happened to him on a daily basis he would reflect and try to gain some kind of wisdom from it. Living a life like Descartes would be fascinating! Instead of worrying and staying in the comfort of familiarity he just flung himself into the world headfirst and learned from every experience that came his way. YOLO. Descartes would have visions or dreams that provided him with insight to use in his daily life. After one of his visions he decided that science was his calling and that after finding fundamental truths he could progress using logic to push science forward. Many of his thoughts are interesting to study but his ideas surrounding dreams and reality are especially enthralling. In Descartes work “Meditations on first philosophy” he presents the argument that our senses cannot be fully trusted because we enter into a dream state. He declares that because we enter into this dream state not experienced by our senses that “reality” may be a dream and all that we find to be true in our “sensual” state may be completely false. He uses wax as an example of this. When we use our senses to examine wax, we can determine certain qualities about it including its shape, size, color, texture, and taste. When wax is held to a flame all of these qualities start to change. But, we can still determine the substance to be wax even though our senses perceive it to be an entirely new substance. This means that in order to understand the true identity of wax we have to use our mind instead of our senses. This also means that our senses cannot be trusted all of the time and our sensual reality may in fact be false. But there is some error in this argument. Descartes argues that there is no clear distinction between dreaming and waking reality. Therefore we may be dreaming right now and our experiences are mere illusions. But, if there is no clear distinction between dreaming and waking reality, dreaming and waking reality are the same things. If they can be determined to be the same thing then the things we experience while dreaming are no different from things we experience in waking reality. The things we experience while dreaming cannot be referred to as illusions that are somehow different from experiences we experience while awake therefore all that we experience in either state is either entirely illusory or entirely reality. Either way, the argument does provide the possibility that dreaming and waking reality are the same thing and that our thoughts may be the only things that are real. This argument is fun to discuss and is very relevant to philosophy but it is harder to determine how it directly relates to psychology. However, there are methods in psychology like psychoanalysis which involve the study of dreams to determine the root of psychological problems. If all reality is the same, it is possible that dreams are directly affecting the waking reality that we perceive to be different.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes
Where else do you go if you want to know something about somebody famous?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations_on_First_Philosophy
Best to read up on the work as a whole before dissecting an argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_argument
I wanted the Wiki side of the story.

http://www.aristotelophile.com/Books/Articles/TheDreamArgumentandDescartesFirstMeditation.pdf
Thought it might have some more info about the argument but it was more of a criticism of it.

The most interesting part of chapter two was about John Locke and his early work with behaviorism. I think John Locke was a key example of a philosopher that was not only a thinker, politician, physician, but also an early psychologist. The work of Locke and his early behaviorist ideas allowed other later psychologists like B.F. Skinner and Watts to do experiments and prove his theories. I was very interested in this topic because I took behavior modifications with Professor Maclin and really enjoyed the concept of modifying behaviors and saw it to be one of the most useful forms of psychology in the everyday world.
The video I watched explained in a funny way that Locke’s new idea of empiricism or that everyone is born with a white blank page instead of the idea of having a basic understanding of survival that some other philosophers believed. I also learned of Locke’s many ideas of government such as all men created equal and separation of power leading to the idea of a democratic government. Thomas Jefferson even took most of his ideas and implemented them into the United States own constitution.
The second topic that Locke popularized so well was the idea of the model of learning. John Locke believed that in order to better teach a student of in that case anyone it is not an effective method to punish someone as it turns them off to whatever they may be doing. He describes that a much better method is rewarding a student which enables them to want to continue to do well and be rewarded with different reward systems. This idea is based on a stimulus response theory that Locke was able to come about. He enabled Skinner, Pavlov, and many other psychologists to test his theory with a wide range of experiments on humans and animals alike.
I believe Locke was also a great psychology icon as he believed in challenging what was already set and stone such as the work of the famous Descartes. Locke thought that even though ideas may be against religious beliefs or ideas that an individual may have that they must be heard and he even had to flee his own country just to voice his own opinion. He believed that knowledge is a direct awareness of what we understood and even facts that were already proven. He thought beliefs should be held firmly and respected those others that stood for what they believed that and it holds him for credible for the work that he accomplished. I think John Locke was a revolutionist that may get a lot of credit for his work, but in my eyes not enough. He was able to not only give contribution to a new form of psychology in itself which is behaviorism, but also give the framework to our own great country.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/locke/
- Encyclopedia of Locke and his work and ideas.

http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/edfac/morton/models_of_learners.htm
- Site told of how B.F. Skinner’s experiments and other psychologists were influenced mostly from Locke’s theory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-buzVjYQvY
- Funny way to learn quick important facts of John Locke comparing both past and present.

The topic that I found most interesting from the chapter was the mention of John Locke's thoughts on God and his exisistance. He holds the belief that God is an inevitable part of being a human being. That believing in a higher power is a way to cope with the fact that every human being dies. I have thought a lot about this, being an athiest, during my college experience. I believe a lot about what John Locke was saying and I do think that dying is scary. It kind of sucks to think that when you die you are dead, and I respect all those people who have faith in a higher power but I think John Locke makes a good point. His point also answers to the fact of why we have so many different types of Gods.
Locke's idea was that everything we know about the world has come from experience and perception. That the way we percieve the world shapes how we live. I agree on this point and I believe that is how human beings come to be vastly different from one another, because all of us have different experiences and see things differently. According to the rest of the world during Locke's time the exisistance of God came intuitively and at birth. To question this caused a lot of uproar in the community.
It was mentioned that after making his statement and theories about God, Locke went a little bit further and mentioned in a statement that the cause of man exists but we cannot know it, and that God exists but we cannot see him. This created unforeseeable problems for Locke because then people started to think that our world was only a compilation of our ideas and perceptions. LIke we discussed in class today, that we can never actually know that this pen is green or that that door is brown, we can only take everyone else's word for it and hope that we are right. This paved the way to the mentalism of Berkeley.

http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/com/com_lock.html
A summary of John Locke's philosophy and work and influence on other philosophies

http://www.tektonics.org/guest/pslockhume.htm
John Locke on the exisistance of God

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/johnlocke/themes.html
Notes about John Locke's book

After reading chapter 2 I chose to research more on George Berkeley and his theory on subjective idealism. I found this really interesting because it really made me think about my own perceptions. It’s hard to ponder, that what we perceive could only be our perception rather than reality.
George Berkeley was born on March 12, 1685, in Ireland. Berkeley started attending college in 1696 at Kilkenny College and later attended Trinity College in Dublin in 1700. He eventually graduated with his B.A degree in 1704 from Trinity College. George Berkeley was an empiricist which is a theory of knowledge that only comes from past sensory experiences. After graduation George proposed a theory that turned out to be the biggest piece of work in his life, his theory of immaterialism. Immaterialism or subject idealism is the idea that common things such as tables, doors, etc. are only perceived if the perceiver sees it that way. He believed that material substances did not exist but rather that perception was what made these things present. The past sensory experiences from the perceiver are what allowed each individual to perceive those ideas. Berkeley felt that perception was a part of reality and we could only be certain of it if we perceived it that way. To Berkeley experience was the main factor in what people perceived. Our minds held the key to what we were able to perceive. He believed that everything within our mind was able to be perceived while anything that was out of our mind had no meaning. Berkeley felt that in order for our minds to comprehend something it has to be within us and if it wasn’t within us it was out of our grasp. If these ideas were never present there was no way to perceive them and therefor they couldn’t be real. George did believe that objects existed BUT it was different for each individual because everyone had a different mind and perception of things. God was the permanent receiver; Berkeley still believed that reality existed along with everything else because god perceived it that way. Through this idea faith in god was vital in our understanding of the world. An example of this would be that my mind is composed of ideas and not objects, and so my mind cannot empirically verify the existence of any object. Even when I touch a tree, the sensation of touch just produces an idea in my mind. When I smell a fragrance, the sensation of smell only produces an idea in my mind. The really difficult part in this theory is that it’s very hard to distinguish what is reality and what is perceived as my reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley
Gave me an expanded background on George Berkeley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHwJs10aryc
a visual of subjective idealism

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/
Helped me understand the concept of subjective idealism.

http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_idealism.html
Helped me link the theory of Berkeley and the concept of subjective idealism.

My topic is Descartes’ view on the mind and the body. The very first part of the chapter talked about his view on these things and how people thought of these views. This interests me because I haven’t heard of anything like this and these types of views really make your brain think. Rene Descartes was a philosopher among many other things who came out with the idea of the argument of the differences between mind and body. He argued that they had nothing to do with each other and he said that our spirits come from animal spirits telling our body what to do, as well as what muscles to use. He said they came together at the pineal gland which is an organ in the center of the brain. He said this is where all the thoughts were formed. He also argued that the only difference between humans and animals were that human bodies were more complex than animals. Descartes said that humans possessed a soul. Descartes argued that flow of spirits were what sleeping and walking depended on.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/Descartes.html
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland/
http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/07/10/exorcizing-animal-spirits/

All of these sites help better understand what Descartes was trying to get at with his theory of the mind/body relationship.

The topic I took interest in for this chapter is John Locke and his views on education. I think it is pretty interesting that although he lived in a time so long ago where raising children was so different than today, Locke had mixed ideas when it came to how a child should be treated and raised, and I think he made some extremely valid child rearing techniques and observations. According to the chapter, Locke had certain views on child rearing, education, and punishment that you almost wouldn’t expect for the time that he lived in. He believed by following certain empiricist principles that he could raise a model human being. Some of his methods were questionable. For example, to help a child become more durable or resilient to their environment he recommended that they sleep on hard beds and wear wet socks to develop a sort of immunity to colds. Locke also believed that children learn best by doing things repeatedly instead of following rules. He also argues against the use of punishment, stating that if a child is beaten repeatedly for not doing something they are supposed to do, that child just learns to dislike the task at hand because he is always beaten for it. Finally, Locke also explains that children are not to be rewarded with candy because it teaches the child to only want the candy, instead of getting the child to enjoy learning. He recommends simply rewarding the child with approval and disapproval.
In letters written to friends of his, he discusses more upbringings and education of children and in one case states that children should not be covered too warmly in the winter or summer, because the face we are born with is not any tenderer than the rest of our body. Another idea that goes along with making sure children are more resilient. Something else that I found very interesting that Locke discusses in his letter is the idea of corsets and girdles of women in that time. He argues that they should be free to grow and breathe how they are supposed to and even discusses the foot binding that takes place in China! He also goes in to great detail about the diet a young man and child should have, essentially that is should be very boring and basic. I think that with these ideas he is trying to raise men that existed in a different time for different reasons. There could be many hardships faced and it was best to raise children to be strong.
One of the things John Locke is best known for is the tabula rasa, which is the idea that the mind is a blank slate. This was a very important concept for him when thinking about a child’s education and upbringing. He felt that is was extremely important for a child to be taught his ideas at a very young age because their brains are “like water”. They are moldable when they are young and therefore easier to be taught these important strategies.
Locke also believed that play was very important for children. Not only to play but to be outside playing and to get fresh air. This is still an idea that exists today, however most adults would argue that children are not getting out as much as they used to. However, he argues that children should have toys in moderation and that the toys should be given to them by their parents, and not their servants, so that they can love their parents for doing so. The child is also only allowed one toy at a time, for example, a top. I think that a lot of these ideas a very humble and have a lot of reason behind them. Children today are showered with gifts and are always “bored”. I think some of John Locke’s ideas could very well be turned in to a parenting book!
http://www.history.org/history/teaching/enewsletter/volume2/june04/primsource.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1692locke-education.asp

John Stuart Mill was defiantly a man ahead of his time in many ways. Mill was born in Pentonville, a suburb right outside of London to James and Harriet Mill. In spite of his father’s rigorous work schedule, he made it one of his main goes to educate Mill and make him a thinking machine through analytical and philosophical thought. It was clear at an early age that James had been successful in the tutoring of his son as he read through the mass majority of the classic Roman and Greek text. In addition to literature Mill would master both algebra and geometry.
Later in his life Mill went through a time of great depression, but never stopped his daily duties because of it despite feeling like nothing would come of them or his work in general. Despite these thoughts after a few months time he found something more in his life. He did so through both reading poetry, which gave him insight to “more” in life and through finding love. For Mill this is what he needed to feel as if he had a purpose in life. Later he would blame his father for his depression, because he made him a logical thinking machine.
Outside of Mill’s life as a philosopher he was very successful as he followed in the footsteps of his father and became a business man and later became involved in politics. He started in The East India Company at an early age and worked his way up the ladder to the position of Chief Examiner (CEO), just as his father had once been. After the Indian Mutiny the British Government asked that the Company shut down and he did so, while retiring and accepting a hefty pension. After the company, Mill became more involved in politics and was eventually elected into the House of Commons. Perhaps one of my favorite things that I read about Mill was that at re-election time the people had different values and he was asked to change his stance on some of his views, but he refused to do so. As a result, he lost the re-election. For me this shows how great Mill’s character was and I wish we had more politicians today that would follow in his footsteps for the greater good of the people.
In Mill’s philosophical work he was considered to be a Utilitarian (doing the best for the greatest number of people). In his writings, Mill’s goal was to figure out how to make the world better as a whole. Perhaps one of my favorite views of Mill, was his views on the role of women. At the time of his writings, women’s suffrage and equal rights, were not even something being discussed nor were they even on the table. However, Mill was so far ahead of the times that he wrote and entire essay on his views and why women should be equal. He did this with the help of his beloved wife Harriot’s daughter, Helen.
The essay was entitled “The Subjection of Women”, which goes into great detail at explaining his thoughts on equal rights for women and why. One of the biggest arguments in the essay was on women’s suffrage. Mill believed that it was important for women to vote, because it was inevitable that men were going to do what was best for the male population and that women needed to have the right to vote to make sure that the greatest number of people helped and represented. With that in mind there was an idea that hindered the women’s rights movement for Mill. He said that most women if given the choice would choose to be caretakers and fails to mention that idea of men being involved in the raising of the children. This “flaw” did have its affects on his movement.

Mill went so far on the subject of women’s rights as to compare it slavery and that mankind had to save women from the confines of the home. Mill attacks the idea that women are not as good at things as men, by pointing that men have never let them try it to know. Furthermore, by stopping them from doing these things they are contradicting there own idea, because if they truly are not good at them or can’t to them and then stop them from doing them. With all of this in mind I must note that Mill was not just one of those people that wrote of equal rights, but never advocated for them. He was involved the National Society of Womens Suffrage, in fact, he was the president at one time.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill
Had basic information on Mill and sell as a section on Women's Rights
http://www.iep.utm.edu/milljs/
Had basic information on Mill and sell as a section on Women's Rights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Subjection_of_Women
Went into more detail on "The Subjection of Women"

A person that really stood out to me in this chapter was John Locke. But I did not want to do my research simply on his life and his work, so I dug deeper. I came across his ideas and views about natural rights, and I immediately was interested. The ideas of Locke’s that were stated in the book were also very interesting, but I wanted to find something new to research. His views about natural rights sparked my interest because I feel that it is a very controversial topic and always will be. Locke expressed a radical view that government is morally obliged to serve people. He wanted to limit government power, and he favored a rule of law. Locke thought that men in the state of nature are free and equal, and at liberty to do as they wish—but only “within the bounds of the law of nature.” He developed these views in his book Second Treatise Concerning Civil Government, and only acknowledged these writings in his will. His ideas inspired many of the libertarian views during the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson noted Locke as one of the most important thinkers on liberty. Locke also inspired and influenced several other prominent figures during his era. His name carries on, however, as it has made it into our textbook. After reading about his ideas on natural rights, I came across a section about his personal life, stating that he did not actually start his writings until he was 57. Up until then he was a physician with little credentials and only one patient. How could a man so smart get such a late start? After doing this research, it has really dawned on me how much information is out there for us to obtain. By choosing one person in history to research, I learned so many things in a short period of time. Think if I did that for everyone mentioned in our textbook?!

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/john-locke-natural-rights-to-life-liberty-and-property/ This site gave an overview of Locke’s views on natural rights, and some information about his writings.
http://www.nlnrac.org/earlymodern/locke This site gave a more detailed description of Locke’s ideas about natural rights, and helped me better understand his thoughts.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/ This site described each law that Locke came up with, and explained each one thoroughly. Very helpful.

My topic is over Nicholaus Copernicus’, Copernican Theory. It fits in chapter two because it was supposedly what started the scientific revolution, thus an important piece of history. I took a personal interest to this topic because I have always been fascinated with astronomy. Astronomy has been a passionate subject for me as long as I can remember.
I’m very glad I chose the Copernican Theory for this particular assignment/blog post. I learned a lot more than what the text could explain about Nicholaus Copernicus. After a short period of research, it became evident that the “heliocentric model” of the universe was already considered by many before Copernicus got to it. So, the idea itself was not actually his. Aristarchus had similar ideas centering around the heliocentric theory before Copernicus did. Copernicus actually referenced Aristarchus several times in his notes. Others have been said to have thought of the heliocentric theory before Copernicus as well.
Nicholaus was actually trained in many different disciplines. This is what led to his “theory” being popularized. His interests included church law, mathematics, astronomy (of course), and physics. With all these different areas of study at his disposal, he was able to convey a legitimate case for the heliocentric model. However, since he was educated in canon law, Copernicus was apprehensive about publishing his theory. Nicholaus feared disciplinary action from the Roman Catholic Church and waited until near death to release his work. It’s possible that his work may have never been released if it wasn’t for one of his apprentices who went by the name of Rheticus. Rheticus urged Copernicus to release his work for a long time but never did for fear of the church. Finally, he convinced him to do so at the last minute.
Copernicus was right that the church would not approve of his work. Luckily, he wasn’t around to deal with the consequences. Galileo Galilei continued the work of Copernicus and used his telescopes to do so. The church wouldn’t have it, and sent the inquisition on Galileo. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life (eight years). The church couldn’t stop the tide of astronomy now, which soon became a prominent study and thanks to Copernicus proving the heliocentric theory, the scientific revolution was set in motion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernican_heliocentrism
I chose Wikipedia because it does a good job of clustering relevant information together.
http://www.universetoday.com/33113/heliocentric-model/
I chose this particular page because it was very easy to understand and read.
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/DawnClassrooms/1_hist_dawn/history_discovery/Exploration/fb_outside_box.pdf
I really chose this site for the sole reason that it’s one of NASAs articles. However, it actually did do a good job at summarizing Copernicus’ career while covering the Copernican theory.
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Copernicus.html
This was my favorite article. It was very descriptive and did a good job at explaining that the heliocentric theory was not solely Nicholaus Copernicus’ idea.

My topic is on John Stuart Mill and feminism. The book said that Mill was beyond his years in his ideas about how women should be treated. Mill believed that women should be treated equally and that men should not be seen as superior to women. I found this very interesting because I am taking a gender difference course this semester. In this class we talk about feminism a lot and found out that a lot of people do not realize that being a feminist just means that you believe in equally of genders. John Stuart Mill is a well-known philosopher that the book talks about, but it does not go into a lot of detail about him. I wanted to know more because he seems to be beyond his era.
I feel that in order to understand his ideas and beliefs, first we need to know more about his background. Mill’s good education was mostly because of his father; he taught him a lot of his knowledge. He learned Greek at the age of three, this is just one example of all the unbelievably difficult things he learned to do. His father wanted him to become a lawyer. Of course all of this stress and amount of mental work caught up to Mill. At the age of twenty Mill experienced a nervous breakdown. He eventually grew out of the depression he found himself in, and then at the age of twenty-five Mill met his future wife Harriet Taylor. There was a problem though; Harriet was happily married to another man. After her husband died, the two were married. Harriet had a big impact on Mill as a feminist as I suspected. Harriet herself wrote an article entitled the “Subjugation of Women”. She showed this article to Mill and he looked at it and let her read an essay he wrote basically about the same thing. She expanded his horizons and through his love for her realized women should be treated equal to men, that women can be just as amazing and intelligent.
A lot of Mill’s work was focuses on politics, so it is no surprise that he would have somewhat of a view on women’s rights. Mill didn’t think it was right that men were given all this power and privilege while women were not really given any power or privilege. He believed the roles of women in marriage should be changed. He strongly believed that women should be able to have a say in public concerns, so women should be able to vote. I’m sure a lot of men in those days probably thought what he was talking about what nonsense. He saw the importance in women having a good education and not just learning how to run a household. This assignment let me get to know a lot more about an amazing man, one that was waiting and hoping for the world that I as a women live in today.
http://feminism.eserver.org/history/docs/history/docs/subjection-of-women.txt - This website was a piece of Mill’s work from the article, “The Subjection of Women”. It gave specific evidence about his feminism views.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill - This website gave me a biography of Mill and his views/beliefs.
http://www.web-books.com/Classics/ON/B1/B1502/05MB1502.html - This website gave me I closer look at the relationship Mill had with Harriet and how she inspired him.