state of nature essays

state of nature essays The period of the Renaissance and Enlightenment was perhaps the greatest turning point in the course of human progress. The flame of reason and human endeavor, which had all but burnt out over the previous one thousand years, was rekindled, and a great many people became inspired with a renewed passion for the pursuit of knowledge. As a result of this, great strides were made in many fields such as the study of science, art, literature, and philosophy. There was one aspect of this new age which was characteristic of all fields of study however, and that was the idea that the human being is a creature of immense faculties, great ability and endless potential in both constructive and destructive endeavors. As a result of this humanistic movement of the 16th and 17th centuries, many thinkers tried to understand humans more thoroughly by determining what basic characteristics are inherent in all men and women. More specifically, they tried to determine how and why humans evolved to form civilized societies, and what motivated them to do so. In addition, as a continuation of the work done by pre-enlightenment thinkers such as Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, scholars debated as to whether or not humans were naturally endowed with the faculty of reason, morality, and whether humans had any natural rights. Determining how humans exist in a state of nature became an important factor in determining why man evolved to form civilized society. John Locke and Thomas Hobbes were two great thinkers of this time who formed radically contrasting theories about the state of nature and mankinds emergence from it. This paper will look at Hobbes Leviathan and Lockes Second Treatise of Government to de termine what each author conceived the state of nature to be. When confronted with the idea of humans in a state of nature, many will automatically associate the idea with a Robinson Crusoe or even a Tarzan-like scenario, where man is c...

Learn How to Conjugate Réduire (to Reduce) in French

Learn How to Conjugate Rà ©duire (to Reduce) in French Rà ©diure  is the French verb that means to reduce. This should be pretty easy to remember because the English and French words are so similar. What happens when you want to say reduced or reducing? Thats when youll need to know  rà ©duires conjugations and this lesson will show you the basics. The Basic Conjugations of  Rà ©duire The French language gives us more forms of verbs to learn then we have in English. Thats because the verb changes with every subject pronoun within each tense. This means you more words to memorize. That is only one challenge in French verb conjugations, though. Words like  rà ©duire  pose another because they dont follow any of the normal rules.  Rà ©duire  is an  irregular verb, though all  French verbs ending in  -uire  are conjugated this way. To make this easier, consider studying a few at the same time. As with any conjugation, we begin with the verb stem. In this case, that is  rà ©dui-. From there, we add a variety of endings to match the tense with the subject pronoun. As an example,  je rà ©duis  means I am reducing while  nous rà ©duisions  means we reduced. Present Future Imperfect je rduis rduirai rduisais tu rduis rduiras rduisais il rduit rduira rduisait nous rduisons rduirons rduisions vous rduisez rduirez rduisiez ils rduisent rduiront rduisaient The Present Participle of  Rà ©duire The present participle of rà ©duire is also irregular in that it adds an - sant ending to the radical. This produces the word rà ©duisant. Rà ©duire  in the Compound Past Tense The  passà © composà ©Ã‚  is a compound past tense and its used often in French. It requires the  past participle  rà ©duit  along with the present tense conjugate of the auxiliary verb  avoir. This forms phrases such as  jai rà ©duit  for I reduced and  nous avons rà ©duit  for we reduced. More Simple Conjugations of  Rà ©duire There are a few more basic conjugations you may need of  rà ©duire  at times and each has its own usage. For example,  the subjunctive  questions whether the act of reducing took place. Similarly,  the conditional  says the reduction will only happen under certain conditions. The passà © simple  and  the imperfect subjunctive  are literary tenses and found most often in formal writing. Subjunctive Conditional Pass Simple Imperfect Subjunctive je rduise rduirais rduisis rduisisse tu rduises rduirais rduisis rduisisses il rduise rduirait rduisit rduist nous rduisions rduirions rduismes rduisissions vous rduisiez rduiriez rduistes rduisissiez ils rduisent rduiraient rduisirent rduisissent For direct statements, commands, and requests when you dont want to mince words, you can use  the French imperative. When doing so, skip the subject pronoun, simplifying  tu rà ©duis  to  rà ©duis. Imperative (tu) rduis (nous) rduisons (vous) rduisez