Reaction Paper

St. Augustine
St. Augustine uses his focus on the fact that God may exists in the same extent which
wisdom and truth exists, which is as concepts or ideas in the mind but not reality. He shows that
there is evidence of God but not a powerful creator. To Augustine, God exists but requires him to
exist for the basis of his argument. St. Augustine focuses on memory as an unconscious
knowledge, which eventually leads him to his knowledge of God. Augustine is no longer telling
events of the past, but only of present time. Augustine starts his analysis of memory in a
description of a house. The storehouse is a place where objects are retrieved, deposited, and re-
stored. Just like the memory where images are kept, and in need recovered. Augustine gives a
characterization of memory as if it was materialistic; it is reliable, everything has its own place in
it, and it can contain unlimited information.
He was aware of love as a contradiction. Love, by definition, is a total gift of self which
doesn’t expect anything in return. Love is unconditional to all and unlimited to all or at least that
is how we are called to practice love. Since we are called to give of ourselves completely, we
will experience suffering. We have a void; a pain that is insatiable by anything the world can
offer. In St. Augustine’s case, he tried to fill it with knowledge and the exploitation of women.
However, he came to known that the only way to taste satisfaction is to experience suffering
through the total gift of self and to have the joy of Jesus Christ by choosing to conform to His
Will. He loved being a Christian intimately and paid attention to detail.
In his confessions, St. Augustine describes the love God haves for each of us. Augustine
brilliantly points out that God loves us so much that he stimulates all of our senses to recognize
Him. In his confessions he writes, “You called, you shouted, and you broke through my
deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance
on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for
more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.” At mass every Sunday, for two thousand
years, God appeals to all of our senses: the sound of the music, the optical beauty of vibrant
paintings and glorious altars and tabernacles, the taste of His Body and Blood, the smell of the
incense, and the touch of joining loved ones in praise and worship of the Most Holy Sacrifice of
the Lamb. I love being Catholic because it meets the needs of humanity. The word catholic
means “universal”. It is literally the church for everyone. The Church’s rich history only
qualifies itself despite her terrible representatives. I love the appeal to my senses at every mass.
The Church gives purpose to the apparent senseless suffering we all experience. My own pain
finds meaning when I realize that in my suffering, I join Christ on the Cross and I get to be a part
of the Redemption of the World. Christianity has given me the greatest family I know: a
community of brothers and sisters working like the redemption of the world all depends on them
and praying like it all depends on God. Catholicism is my home.
John Locke
Locke’s major political analysis in Second Treatise of Government argues for individual
natural rights, limited government, separation of powers, and the right of people to overthrow a
failed leader. One of his most debated political philosophies from that writing is that of property,
which was regarded as the foundation of classical liberalism. His theory tried to emphasize the
importance of individual rights and limiting state authority. Locke’s concept of private property
was not always accepted and still creates controversial discussions. He places the right to
property on the same level as the right to life and liberty. Locke described property as a claim to
ownership of something. He divided the term ‘property’ into two parts: common and private. The
type most-discussed in class was his theory of private property, in which he explained that God
gave the world and everything in it was for humans to use. The earth can be used for our own
survival and benefit. However, he posits the questions of how one can attain private property
when everything on earth is supposed for be for common use? Explaining the answer to this
question was most difficult because he had to justify why some people lost the right to property
that used to be common. For individual, private property to be attainable, there must be a means
for people to appropriate the things around them. Locke starts his explanation by proposing the
idea of ‘property of person,’ meaning that each person owns his or her own body and all of the
labor they perform. Therefore, when individual people offer their own labor and their own
property to a ‘foreign’ good, that thing becomes their own property. In his essay, Locke says
“everyman has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labor
of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he
removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with,
and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.”
Locke then places a limit on this way of obtaining property: a person can only
obtain property this way if they can use it reasonably, implying that one should only take as
much as one can reasonably use or take advantage of. He sets the rules that a person can only
acquire land for building a house or farm if they aren’t wasting property. That wasted propertied
could be left for common use or someone else could have the opportunity to acquire it. His
reason for identifying this limit is because “Nothing was made by God for Man to spoil or
destroy.” In Alan Wolfe’s chapter one of The Future of Liberalism, he explains Locke’s opinion
that “in the beginning, all the world was America.” He believes the interpretation is a “claim that
freedom and equality would become forces too powerful to resist.” This idea became a very
significant element of liberalism, even to this day. This quotation is often used to introduce the
question of how property rights are established, however Locke was elaborating on the use of
trade in a world of obtaining property. Because John Locke’s theory of private property is
controversial, it is simple to point out weaknesses in the argument. The first, and possibly the
most obvious, weakness is questioning the idea of taking over common property. If this is
acceptable, the theory suggests that taking the property would worsen the situation of others.
Another issue that labor cannot be a clear deciding factor in claiming ownership to anything you
desire, because there have to be boundaries.
 There is, however, an inherent strength to Locke’s entire argument; there’s a reason the
theory has been so influential. He is yet another great philosopher that believes in putting the
rights of the individual before the rights of the state. Locke's treatment of property is generally
thought to be amongst his most important contributions in political thought, but it is also one of
the aspects of his thought that has been most heavily criticized. As discussed throughout this
essay, his ideas could still be considered relevant, but perhaps not in today’s society. Our society
would need a deeper understanding of Locke’s ideas and suggestions in order to take them on.
René Descartes

In 1641, René Descartes sought to deny and doubt all of his previous knowledge through
his Meditations on First Philosophy. His goal was to start fresh by constructing a new set of
beliefs and only believing those affirmations that he deemed infallibly true. To achieve this,
Descartes relied solely on individual insight and mental reasoning. This approach can be
extremely valuable but I feel Descartes’ assumptions and arguments were somewhat lacking
even though he is an extremely influential philosophical figure.
I think of Descartes as a pioneer for his time period. He went about the question of
knowledge in an extremely rational way considering the lack of reliability of even the most
prominent scholars of the time. In addition, he effectively helped to redefine Rationalism and
promote the importance of the individual during the enlightenment. Overall, I think of the
meditations as an extremely intelligent endeavor that had an important impact on philosophy as a
whole.
As far as the content of the meditations however, Descartes comes across as unbalanced
and even contradictory at times. He starts out strong and sensible in mediations one and two in
which he determines that “I exist” and “I am a thinking thing”.
The third meditation is where I begin to find issue though. Descartes states that he has an
inherent idea of god but this is in fact false. His idea of God, or the maximally perfect being,
comes directly from his schooling and his upbringing. These are the very things that Descartes’
seeks to deny. To base his argument for the existence of God off of this seems to be a poor place
to start. In addition, Descartes’ argument for the existence of God seems much less valid when
coupled with the theory of evolution. Although Descartes was alive well before Darwin, it still
makes me question the accuracy of Descartes’ assumptions on knowledge. I label Descartes as
unbalanced because it seems as though his strong faith in his own religion of Christianity sways
his judgment when he attempts to rebuild his foundation of knowledge. I think he went about his
project with an intention to prove God’s existence instead of an unbiased more balanced
approach that is open to whatever truths are discovered. Had he stuck to his goals of rejecting all
his previous teachings I would have found his arguments much more credible.
Regardless of his shortcomings, I still think Descartes had a brilliant approach to his
acquisition of knowledge. Since reading his meditations, I have begun to question knowledge I
took for granted and simply assumed to be true. If nothing else, Descartes’ project can help
people learn much about themselves and what they truly believe in, as opposed to just accepting
everything that has been taught to them and universally accepted. I would encourage any person
to doubt the very things that seem so obvious and to attempt to construct a new base of
knowledge that is true in the most absolute sense of the word with no loopholes or doubt, just as
Descartes did.