[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Contention
Choices become valid philosophical truths only when a man is willing to declare and defend his personal freedom at the risk of his own life. Valid philosophical truths must foster the belief in natural law and universal order and the confidence in human reason. A rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues promotes a secular view of the world and a general sense of progress and perfectibility. With supreme faith in rationality, one can discover and act upon universally valid principles governing humanity, nature, and society. The state is the proper and rational instrument of progress. The philosophical view of human rationality being in harmony with the universe creates a hospitable climate for the laissez-faire economics. The supreme importance of the individual formed the basis of the ethics of rationality.
From the certainty of the existence of a thinking being, rationality passes to the existence of God, for which one may offer proof based on ontological proof and another based on the first cause that must have produced the idea of God in the thinker. Having thus arrived at the existence of God, one reaches the reality of the physical world through God, who would not deceive the thinking mind by perceptions that are illusions. Therefore, the external world, which we perceive, must exist. A person thus falls back on the acceptance of what we perceive clearly and distinctly as being true, and he studies the material world to perceive connections. One may view the physical world as mechanistic and entirely divorced from the mind, the only connection between the two being by intervention of God. (Wolff 512)
Universality is very important for the viability of valid philosophical truths. Take the belief in religion for instance. The common factor in religions is the ascription to the God..............
