Aristotle vs Plato Essay -- Metaphysics,The Four Causes, Soul and Body

Aristotle is considered by many to be one of the most influential philosophers in history. As a student of Plato, he built on his mentor’s metaphysical teachings of things like The Theory of Forms and his views on the soul. However, he also challenged them, introducing his own metaphysical ideas such as act and potency, hylemorphism, and the four causes. He used these ideas to explain his account of the soul and the immateriality of intellect. Prior to Aristotle, philosophers like Parmenides and Heraclitus argued about the existence of change. Aristotle used the terms act and potency to respond to Parmenides arguments about change’s non-existence and bridge the gap between Parmenides and Heraclitus’ polar views. Aristotle used act and potency to examine numerous things such as, motion, causality and metaphysics. He explained that the act or actuality of a thing is its truest way of being and that potency or potential is a things capability of being, further than its current existence. For example, a soccer ball is in actuality on the field; but in potentiality it can be kicked and enter the goal. According to Aristotle’s reasoning, the becoming or change of the soccer ball occurs when a potential is actualized. Though these changes occur, the thing itself stays the same. When the ball is kicked, it loses the actuality of being on the field and gains the actuality of being in the goal; in turn, the bal l then loses the potentiality of being in the goal and gains the potentiality of being on the field. Aristotle later explains that the â€Å"full reality† of a thing is when the actuality and potentiality of a thing are combined. He notes that while things can be â€Å"pure potency,† meaning not actual or real, that there is... ...usible argument. I can see the understanding in both schools of thought. If I were to think logically I would say Aristotle, because he based his conclusions on science and evidence. However, it is their views on the soul where I make my decision on who I (If I had to choose) agree with. I personally believe that the soul, my soul, is something that exists separate from my body. I believe that my body is a temporary and imperfect thing, but that my soul is immortal. I cannot say that I have come to this conclusion because it is the more â€Å"plausible† answer, but rather a belief in my faith that this life is temporary and all souls are eternal. While I understand that this view isn’t completely in line with Plato’s, I think Plato’s is closer than Aristotle’s to mine. Aristotle. "De Anima." Basic Works of Aristotle. Ed. Richard McKeon. New York: Random House, 1941.

Capitalismâ€a Propaganda Story Essay

Michael Moore is the Leni Riefenstahl of our time. Or, perhaps he would be better characterized as a Bizzaro World Leni Riefenstahl, because while she propped up with propaganda the political powers of her time, Moore uses the same techniques to bring down the powers of our time, be it GM (Roger and Me), the gun lobby (Bowling for Columbine), the government (Fahrenheit 911), the health care industry (Sicko), or free enterprise (Capitalism: A Love Story). In this latest installment in his continuing series of what’s wrong with America, Michael Moore takes aim at his biggest target to date, and the result is a disaster. The documentary is not nearly as funny as his previous films, the music selections seem contrived and flat, and the edits and transitions are clumsy, wooden, and not nearly as effective as what we’ve come to expect from the premiere documentarian (Ken Burns notwithstanding) of our time. And, most importantly, the film’s central thesis is so bad that it’s not even wrong. First, let me confess that even though I have disagreed with most of Michael Moore’s politics and economics throughout his career, I have thoroughly enjoyed his films as skilled and effective works of art and propaganda, never failing to laugh — or be emotionally distraught — at all the places audiences are cued to do so. My willing suspension of disbelief that enables me to take so much pleasure from works of fiction, does not always serve me well when pulled into the narrative arc of a documentary. Thus it is that with his past films I have exited the theater infuriated at the same things Moore is †¦ until I rolled up my sleeves and did some fact checking of my own, at which point Moore’s theses unravel (with the possible exception of Bowling for Columbine, his finest work in my opinion). But with Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore’s propagandistic props are so transparent and contrived that I never was able to suspend disbelief. What was especially infuriating about Capitalism: A Love Story was the treatment of the people at the bottom end of the economic spectrum. The film is anchored on two eviction stories contrived to pull at the heart strings. One family filmed the eviction process themselves and sent the footage to Moore in hopes he’d use it (many are called, few are chosen), and the other was filmed by Moore’s crew. The message of both is delivered with a sledge hammer: Greedy Evil Soul-Sucking Bankers (think Lionel Barrymore’s villainous Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life) are tossing out onto the streets of America poor innocent families who are victims of circumstances not of their making. Why? First, because this is what Greedy Evil Soul-Sucking Bankers do for fun on weekends. Two, because the economic crisis caused solely by said bankers has made it impossible for families to make the payments on those subprime loans they were tricked into taking by those same bankers, who themselves were suckered into a Ponzi-like scheme cooked up by Alan Greenspan and his Wall Street/Federal Reserve buddies to take back the homes fully owned by (first) the elderly and (then) the poor. In the fine print that the bankers carefully slipped past the elderly and the poor for these second mortgages and subprime loans, the contracts said that the rates on variable rate loans could go up, and that the house was collateral for the loan such that if the loan payments are not made the home is subject to foreclosure and repossession by the bank (which is what the bankers are hoping happens). In Michael Moore’s worldview, a goodly portion of the American people are ignorant, uneducated, clueless pinheads too stupid to realize the fundamental principle of a loan: you have to have collateral to secure the loan! No collateral, no loan. You say to the banker â€Å"I would like to take out a loan.† The banker says to you â€Å"what do you have for collateral?† What happened in the housing boom was that bankers relaxed their standards for what they would require for collateral (and income, assets, etc.) because (1) the government told them to do so and promised to cover their losses if it didn’t work out, and (2) they wanted to make more money; and borrowers wanted in on the cash cow that everyone was milking, from individual house flippers looking for a quick buck, to ordinary families wanting extra cash for remodeling, tuition, or whatever, to mortgage giants wanting corporate expansion. And all were driven by the same motive: greed! Yes, greed. Those evicted families knew perfectly well what they were doing when they freely chose to climb onto the housing bubble and take it for a ride. I have a much higher view of the American public than does Michael Moore. I don’t think the American people are so stupid or uneducated that they didn’t know what they were doing. This wasn’t rocket science. It was even on television, the ne plus ultra of pop culture! I well remember watching A & E’s television series Flip This House, and reading all those magazine articles and get-rich-quick books on how to make a fortune in the real estate market, and thinking â€Å"wow, everyone’s getting rich except me; how can I get in on the action?† What I felt is, I’m sure, what lots of people felt. I looked into securing a second mortgage on my home in order to build a second home on an undeveloped portion of my hillside property, and then selling it to turn a tidy profit. Everyone was doing it. What could go wrong? Well, for starters I thought, what if it takes longer to build the home than I projected? We all know how slow construction projects can be. Could I make the payments on the second mortgage for an additional six months to a year? And what if I couldn’t sell that second home? Could I make the payments on the new loan indefinitely? What if my income decreased instead of increased, like it was at the time (and, subsequently, did †¦ dramatically!). And what would happen if I couldn’t make the payments? The answer was obvious, and it wasn’t in the fine print: I could lose my primary home. Forget that! Making a profit on a second home would be nice, but losing my first home would hurt well more than twice as much as making a profit on the second home would feel good. That’s a basic principle of risk aversion: losses hurt twice as much as gains feel good. Now, I’m not really a risk-averse guy (I gave up a secure career as a college professor for an insecure career as a writer and publisher), but even I could see the inherent risks involved when the home you live in could be taken away. My hillside remains sagebrush and wild grass. What about the people on the other end of the economic spectrum — the bankers and Wall Street moguls? Why aren’t they being evicted. Now, given that I’m a libertarian, you might expect me to come to the defense of Corporate America. Not so. Here I am in complete agreement with Michael Moore that, as I’ve been saying since the day it was first pronounced, â€Å"too big to fail† is the great myth of our time. None of these giant corporations — GM, AIG, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, et al. — should have been bailed out. In fact, they should have been allowed to fail, their stocks go into the toilet, their employees tossed out on to the gilded streets of lower Manhattan, and their CEOs dispersed to work as greeting clerks at Walmart. They gambled and lost on all those securities, bundled securities, derivatives, credit default swaps, and other â€Å"financial tools† that I’ll bet not one in a hundred Wall Street experts actually understands. If you really believe in free enterprise, you must accept the freedom to lose everything on such gambles. These CEOs and their corporate lackeys are nothing more than welfare queens who adhere to the motto â€Å"in profits we’re capitalists, in losses we’re socialists.† Sorry guys, you can’t have it both ways without corrupting your morals, which you have, along with the politicians you’ve bribed, cajoled and otherwise coerced to your bidding. The solution? I have some suggestions of my own, but Michael Moore’s solution is beyond bizarre: replace capitalism with democracy. Uh? Replace an economic system with a political system? Even the à ¼ber liberal Bill Maher was baffled by that one when he hosted Moore on his HBO show. How does a democracy produce automobiles and computers and search engines? It doesn’t. It can’t. Capitalism: A Love Story, ends with a remarkable film clip that Moore discovered of President Franklin Roosevelt reading from his never proposed second Bill of Rights (he died shortly after and the document died with him). Included in the list are: The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living; The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; The right of every family to a decent home; The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; The right to a good education. That’s nice. To this list I would add a computer in every home with wireless Internet access. I’m sure we could all think of many more things â€Å"under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all — regardless of station, race, or creed,† in Roosevelt’s words. But there is one question left unstated: Who is going to pay for it? If there is no capitalism, from where will the wealth be generated to pay for all these wonderful things? How much does a â€Å"decent† home costs these days, anyway? Do you see the inherent contradiction? Of course you do. So does Michael Moore, who elsewhere in the film longs for the good old days when the â€Å"rich† were taxed 90% of their earnings. So did Willie Sutton, who answered a similar question after being nabbed by the FBI during the Great Depression and asked by a reporter why he robs banks: â€Å"Because that’s where the money is.†

The Burnout Athlete

Many athletes dedicate their lives to their sport; however, the human body cannot always handle the demands of sport. The general consensus among athletes is that you must work very hard in order to improve performance. For the most part, that assumption is true. Hard training places much stress on the body and makes a person weaker, and it is in the rest period where the gains are actually made. Overtraining is seen in athletes when sufficient rest is not included in their training program and their performance plateaus, and then eventually declines. This chronic debilitating syndrome is characterized most commonly by fatigue, the inability to exceed the former level of performance, and a decreased ability to recover. If an athlete continues to overtrain, it can ultimately lead to burnout, which is total mental, emotional and physical exhaustion, often resulting in early withdrawal from the sport environment. Burnout is characterized by loss of desire to play, lowered self-esteem, emotional isolation, increased anxiety and mood changes. In the following studies, psychologists have tried to determine what exactly causes repeatedly poor performances and the tendency for athletes to prematurely quit the sports they love. The study done in 1984 on the psychological burnout in high-level athletes, David Feigley notes the lowered quality of our national team programs due to high rates of dropout much before athletes reach their prime. He focused on elite adolescent athletes because their attrition rate is so high. Until this study was done, burnout was related mostly to job stress, but the findings were seen to be applicable to sporting situations. When bureaucratic management organizations were compared to sports programs, many similarities were discovered including hierarchical authority, rational authority, impersonal application of rules and the division of labour. In this study, Feigley refers to burnout as a condition produced by working too hard for too long in a high-pressured situation, accompanied by a progressive loss of idealism, energy and purpose that is often paralleled by a feeling of being locked into a routine. The individual displays a pattern of physical and emotional exhaustion involving the development of negative self-concepts and negative attitudes towards work, life and other people (Feigley, 1984). There were several characteristics that identified people as more susceptible to burnout including perfectionism, being other-oriented and lacking assertive interpersonal skills. His research found that burnout could be the result of demotivation occurring from the change and nature of feedback, the increasing need for autonomy, and the increasing awareness of the physical, competitive and social consequences of intense participation (Feigley, 1984). Feigley concludes that by diagnosing the symptoms early, recognizing susceptible individuals, and combating demotivators can assist in preventing and amending this disorder. In 1987, Morgan, Brown, Raglin, O†Connor and Ellickson, engaged in a study on the psychological monitoring of overtraining and staleness involving competitive university swimmers. Overtraining is seen as deliberate and important in endurance sports, which is the reason he chose the sport of swimming. The general procedure was a psychometric assessment using the Profile of Mood States (POMS), which measures relevant levels of mood, tension, depression, anger, vigour, fatigue and confusion. The POMS was administered to approximately 400 members (male & female) of the swimming team over a period of ten years within a realistic setting and training load, instead of one manipulated experimentally. They came to the conclusion that mood state disturbances increased in a dose-response manner as the training stimulus increased. The possibility that the changes in mood state could be attributed to something other than training for a competition like academic, economic or social stressors, led Morgan et al. (1987) to carry out an investigation using swimming and control groups. The findings supported the view that increased mood disturbance with overtraining is associated with the training stimulus rather than the other stressors. This study also looked at an aspect known as tapering and came to the conclusion that this reducing of the training load can be as effective as complete rest, if sufficient time is available. A few years later in 1990, Murphy, Fleck, Dudley and Callister examined the training loads of athletes in a controlled environment as opposed to the previous studies done during a usual training season. In monitoring psychological tribulations, this study used standardized clinical instruments, which hadn†t been used before as there has been little research done in this area. The objective was to discover psychological characteristics of overtraining. Athletes participating in judo at a United States Olympic Training Center were chosen for the study because of the high volume and intensity demands in their training programs. The subjects were monitored over a ten-week period consisting of three phases. They were assessed by use of psychological instruments such as the POMS, the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory, the Spielberger State-Trait Personality Inventory, the Derogatis Symptom Checklist and the Psychological Skills Inventory for Sport. An increase in negative mood states following an increase in volume training was not seen in this study as earlier ones have shown. The most reliable gauge used until this point had been the POMS score, but in this study there was no substantial change for the duration of the experiment. Another study was done in 1990, this time by John Silva in order to present conceptual models that define the nature of positive and negative adaptations to training stress using intercollegiate athletes involved in ten different sports. Since little was known about the prevalence of negative responses to training stress, what the athletes perceive as the causes and symptoms, and how often athletes experience negative training stress Silva decided to investigate it. He first divided training stress into three phases, staleness, overtraining and burnout. Staleness, which Silva defines as the initial failure of the body†s adaptive mechanisms to cope with the psychological stress created by training stimuli, was experienced by 72. 7% of the athletes, who perceived it as tolerable. Of the respondents, 66. 1% indicated that overtraining, as Silva describes, as the repeated failure of the body†s adaptive mechanisms to cope with chronic training stress, was bad to experience. The number who experienced the final phase of burnout, (the exhaustive psychophysiological response exhibited as a result of frequent efforts to meet excessive training demands), dropped to 46. 9% and was rated as being the worst effect of negative training stress. A few years later in 1994, Bo Berglund and Hans Safstrom engaged in a study, which monitored the psychological changes during training and racing seasons in fourteen world-class canoeists to determine whether mood disturbances are the result of an increase in training load. On the basis of distress markers, they also tried to titrate the training loads of the athletes during periods of hard training and tapering. Starting in the off-season, (when there was a low training load), and continuing until the end of the season, Berglund administered a Swedish version of the POMS, because previous research had consistently shown that mood responses are sensitive indicators of how well athletes can tolerate overtraining (Berglund, 1994). At the same time, the athletes were also asked on a weekly basis, to complete a training load rating test describing the previous week†s workouts. During the heavy training, the POMS score increased significantly to approximately 160, until the athletes reached the tapering period, where there was a significant improvement in mood state in which the score decreased to 120. The findings were consistent with earlier studies that an evaluation of mood response to hard training can reduce the risk of staleness. Recently, in 1997, Hooper, Mackinnon and Hanrahan were interested in determining whether athletes who are stale showed different values in the POMS from those who are intensely trained but not stale. Hooper indicates staleness in this investigation as when the athlete has reached any of the states of negative adaptation to training stress (staleness, overtraining, or burnout). The POMS mood states of nationally ranked swimmers were measured over an entire season. There were five times during the season when the subjects were tested: early, mid and late season, during tapering and post-competition. This questionnaire was answered before the testing of performance. Hooper et al. (1997) classified the swimmers as â€Å"stale† or â€Å"not stale† at the end of the season based on certain criteria. Compared to previous times, stale athletes demonstrated poorer competitive performances. In contrast, the non-stale athletes showed an improvement in performance. In comparing the POMS scores of the stale versus non-stale swimmers, there was no notable difference. Hooper et al. (1997) coupled this current data with that of a previous study (Morgan et al. , 1988), which showed that significant increases in POMS scores have been observed in athletes after intensified training, which did not result in staleness, to come to their conclusion. The fact that there were only three stale athletes and the POMS assessment was administered only five times on non- training days, are limitations that Hooper et al. (1997) declare in their study. The general conclusion drawn from this study is that while it appears that the POMS may be useful for monitoring for those athletes predisposed to staleness, it may not reliably differentiate between stale and non-stale athletes under all circumstances (Hooper et al. , 1997). Also in 1997, Ralph Vernacchia composed an article on psychological perspectives on overtraining. He uses the combined results of previous studies to define overtraining, identify the overtrained athlete and also caution risk factors for this syndrome. Vernacchia agrees with Morgan†s (1992) use of the word overtraining implying it is an ongoing process, whereas staleness and burnout refer to the outcomes of overtraining. This article emphasizes the need to stress an athlete just before, but never to, the point of exhaustion. There are two motivational patterns displayed by unsuccessful athletes, discussed by Vernacchia, which need to be investigated in order to understand the motivations of the overtrained athlete. They are the undermotivated, overconfident underachiever and the overmotivated, underconfident underachiever. Two tools identified by Vernacchia used to recognize overtrained athletes are the POMS and the Daily Analysis of Life Demands for Athletes Inventory. It concludes by offering recommendations for preventing overtraining in athletes. Overtraining in athletes is a phenomenon, which manifests symptoms that are detrimental to an athlete†s performance. Interest in this subject arose in the mid 1980s, therefore has not been studied to a great depth. Every study has its own set of signs and symptoms associated with this syndrome, but are becoming more similar and distinct as the years go on. The psychological assessment tool that has been used most often throughout these studies is the POMS, which is seen to have both positives and negatives associated with it. The only known treatment for this syndrome is rest, which is why early detection is very important. The longer the overtraining has occurred; the more rest is required. The athlete may then slowly resume training at low volumes on alternate days and gradually work their way back up to reasonable loads, being careful not to let it recur. A general conclusion to date has been that monitoring athletes during periods of strenuous training for symptoms, which are indicative of overtraining, are beneficial in prevention. Coaches and athletes need to be educated on the factors that lead to overtraining in order to eliminate the possibility of occurrence and adhere to the old saying, â€Å"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure†. Many steps can be taken to prevent overtraining, and they all begin with good communication between the athlete and coach. The athletes could start by keeping a log of training and include how they felt, muscular soreness, fatigue and general heath after each workout. The coach must allow the athlete adequate rest following intense, high volume workouts and it is the athlete†s duty to express concerns when this is not happening. Ultimately, a training program should allow for flexibility, and when early warning signs of overtraining are evident, adjustments need to be made accordingly. In reviewing the literature to date on this topic, and realizing the disastrous consequences for athletes, it is safe to say that being undertrained is far better than being overtrained. Nonetheless, continued research on intensive training and tapering cycles, involving more subjects and a greater range of sports is necessary for the benefit of athletes.