Philosophy

Historically, there have been many injustices, whether it be environmental, racial, in regards to sex, imperialism, etc. In regards to these wrongdoings that our predecessors have committed, how does society go about repairing the damages of these decisions. Should the guilt and blame of these actions be placed on a specific group/person's shoulder's? How do we decide if someone should be forced to pay these reparations, and if so who? This issue is contemplated in the article "Environmental Degradation, Reparations, and the Moral Significance of History" by Simon Caney. In the article Caney discusses and argues the Causal and Beneficiary Accounts that are relevant when deciding how/who should pay "reparations" for environmental injustices.  Based off the Causal account, those who caused the environmental issues should be the ones who pay for the reparations and should help those who suffered as a result of the action (Caney 467) . However, the implications ...

  A year is made of 365 days. A day is made of 24 hours. An hour up of 60 minutes. And a minute is made up of 60 seconds. Essentially this concept of time perception that we have all been taught from elementary school all relies on the unit we have labeled a "second".   What even constitutes a second? I speak from personal experience when I say that I have never really given much thought to the concept of time measurement, especially its units such as "seconds". That's why Eran Tal's article,    "Making Time: A Study in the Epistemology of Measurement", really made me redefine and rethink how I view the concept of seconds.  The article discusses the history of the second and how it came to be known how it is today.  9,192,631,770 Hz, is the frequency of the radiation that is emitted as the Caesium-133 atom transitions to its lowest energy state also known as the ground state. Since 1967,  9,192,631,770 periods of this radiation emitted from t...

Let us imagine that you stood in the center of a field and had two people, A and B, stand at an equal distance from you on opposites sides. If both A and B proceeded to kick a ball at you at the same velocity, both balls should hypothetically reach you at the same moment. This concept relates to the idea of simultaneity which can be defined as the relation between two events assumed to be happening at the exact same time.  What is the theory of Relativity of Simultaneity?  One theory presented by Albert Einstein challenges this concept: the theory of the relativity of simultaneity. The relativity of simultaneity essentially states that "inertial observers in relative motion disagree on the timing of events at different places" (Norton). Ultimately, deciding whether two separate events are occurring simultaneously is not definite but depends on the observer's relative motion, or their reference frame. Ultimately, two different observers may have differing opinions on wheth...

  "Time is an Illusion" - Albert Einstein We have all heard the phrase "Time is of the essence" which discusses the importance and brevity of this concept we have labeled "time". It is something we all take for granted and very rarely do we stop and think about the concept of time and what it even really is. In the article, "The Unreality of Time" author J.Ellis McTaggart analyzes the idea of "time" through discussing two series called series A and B. McTaggart uses these series to emphasize his argument that time is unreal.  Before reading this article, my conception of the nature of time was fairly undeveloped as I had a very basic understanding of the implications behind the topic. To me, time basically amounted to the numbers I read off my phone or off the clock. I knew that time could be applied in different scenarios and I understood the concept of past, present, and future. Time always seemed like this quantity that there was too...