Intellectual challenges

[Ariadne]

First of all, hello...I'm new here..and well, I suppose I'm taking advantage here a bit, but I sort of need help. I'm just finishing a philosophy course and we have to hand in an essay on what my teacher calls intellectual challenges.

Now, I'm not asking anybody to write this for me or something equally...monstrous, just wondering if anybody has some good ideas or references or something. Anyways, here's what my assignment is:

1. Identify the most important intellectual challenge of our time.

* Clarification: By ”intellectual challenge” we mean a challenge that calls for WISDOM rather than new invention or discovery as a solution to this challenge.
* (We are not interested in proposals that state that the most serious challenge of our time is pollution and the solution to this problem is a technological device called ”polution eraser” the mechanisms of which are yet undiscovered. This kind of solution is just more pollution )

2. Explain why this challenge is the most important one.
3. Identify the group that faces this challenge and bears the responsibility for dealing with it.
4. Propose a solution to this challenge or a strategy of dealing with this challenge and explain why it is, in your opinion, the best solution to this challenge.

I was thinking of writing about peace, and how the lack of, well, morals and ethics makes us unable to communicate and accept eachother (my mother belives the lack of communication is one of the main reasons behind discrimination and lack of acceptance).

So I was reading up on Kant and uhm... Hobbes, who both had some rather negative views on human nature....o.o and I was thinking of making a comparison between them and then maybe make some references to Moore's Utopia, since that kind of extreme seems impossible and unacceptable as well...

And well...yes, I'm rather stuck, because while they mention ethics, I don't have enough background on why we can't be peaceful or how we could become peaceful (communication issues aside).

So, any ideas? Is there perhaps some obscure philosopher I neglected who might've had some opinion on the subject?

Thanks and oh, sorry if this doesn't make a lot of sense, it's almost 2 am, but I was so happy I found a decent forum that actually doesn't talk only about anime or whatever, that I had to post. :blush:

[Eagleheart]

Statements like: "It depends on our notions of the natural" /don't ask how it was developed from my classmateI simply cannot draw for you the logical line between a bad mark in school and the deep observation above- / direct me to the severity of relativism. The biggest intellectual challenge I may point is Relativism...-now it is the new oppression...Lack of any absolute is the main premise for the "niceness" of our world..."it depends" is hypnotizingly attractive in the possibilities it offers...The order of things maintains the fear of punishment as the main inspiration to observe the law, not its intrinsic value/... Today even religion is no absolute/ partly explained with the same proposition as in the law-compliance/...As I cannot be suspected of any dogmatic inclinations...what I am saying is that the world perhaps would be a better place to live if we had values in the things- naturalness that would not be "modified" when the social spirit changes, and absolutes adapted to the demands of a state, of a generation and so on...Yes it would be a challenge - not to permit the old cultural arguments to serve only inhumane relativism...For those pointing for example how values differ in locality...I still remain the same position...in the same way I would oppose in a hypothetical situation any label of "cultural enrichment" to newly discovered canibalistic traditions of a people/ only for example/...Absolutes may be indeed very few...but lack of any fixed ground or the intellectual servitude to the viewpoint is no freedom of dogma...
Welcome to the forum Ariadne, and if you are following another line in your thoughts you may still share it...

[dramasnot6]

this site may help you. its got a lot of things on ethics and will give you a very thorough psychological standpoint. its got to be my favorite siten of all time and has helped me with various assingments.

www.changingminds.org

hope its of some help! and welcome to the forum!!!!

[ghideon]

I am not up your challenge right now...kind of burnt out. But I will share some wise advise that a college professor shared one day in a Literature class. "If you think you have come up with a thesis, an argument, if you think you have come up with an insight then ask yourself just one simple question: "So What?" It is a sharp thoughtful blade to use to cut through any hubris,absolutism and all else.

tata,
Ghideon

[byquist]

It's probably too late now, and your paper is written; did you select "peace" as your subject which, by looking at a newpaper, is most pressing globally?

Daniel Dennett, who in his classic book considers Darwin a near-god, distinguishes between the Mind-first viewpoint and the not-Mind-first viewpoint which he ascribes to. Dennett doesn't think the Mind-first stance can deliver much of any truth, accuracy or harmony. Some people think the one-Mind-first viewpoint is the only potential delivery base of truth, peace and reality.

You might, if still working on the paper, decide between which position has the advantage, as far as determining peace: a) Dennett's many minds; or
b) one all-Mind.

Dennett says tons more to be sure; but it's probably safe to say that he would shun the idea of "one Mind."