Pre-Socratic Philosophers Essay Essay Example

Pre-Socratic Philosophers Essay Paper â€Å"Pre-Socratic† is the look normally used to depict those Grecian minds who lived and wrote between 600 and 400 B. C. It was the Pre-Socratics who attempted to happen cosmopolitan rules which would explicate the natural universe from its beginnings to man’s topographic point in it. Although Socrates died in 399 B. C. . the term â€Å"Pre-Socratic† indicates non so much a chronological bound. but instead an mentality or scope of involvements. an mentality attacked by both Protagoras ( a Sophist ) and Socrates. because natural doctrine was worthless when compared with the hunt for the â€Å"good life. †To give the Presocratic minds their full due would necessitate an article of encyclopaedic range. Given that. I have decided to name a figure of sites on single Presocratic minds. Anaximander1. We will write a custom essay sample on Pre-Socratic Philosophers Essay specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Pre-Socratic Philosophers Essay specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Pre-Socratic Philosophers Essay specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Life and SourcesThe history of written Greek doctrine starts with Anaximander of Miletus in Asia Minor. a fellow-citizen of Thales. He was the first who dared to compose a treatise in prose. which has been called traditionally On Nature. This book has been lost. although it likely was available in the library of the Lyceum at the times of Aristotle and his replacement Theophrastus. It is said that Apollodorus. in the 2nd century BCE. stumbled upon a transcript of it. possibly in the celebrated library of Alexandria. Recently. grounds has appeared that it was portion of the aggregation of the library of Taormina in Sicily. where a fragment of a catalogue has been found. on which Anaximander’s name can be read. Merely one fragment of the book has come down to us. quoted by Simplicius ( after Theophrastus ) . in the 6th century AD. It is possibly the most celebrated and most discussed phrase in the history of doctrine. We besides know really small of Anaximander’s life. He is said to hold led a mission that founded a settlement called Apollonia on the seashore of the Black Sea. He besides likely introduced the gnomon ( a perpendicular sun-dial ) into Greece and erected one in Sparta. So he seems to hold been a much-traveled adult male. which is non amazing. as the Milesians were known to be brave crewmans. It is besides reported that he displayed grave manners and wore grandiloquent garments. Most of the information on Anaximander comes from Aristotle and his student Theophrastus. whose book on the history of doctrine was used. excerpted. and quoted by many other writers. the alleged doxographers. before it was lost. Sometimes. in these texts words or looks appear that can with some certainty be ascribed to Anaximander himself. Relatively many testimonies. about one tierce of them. hold to make with astronomical and cosmogonic inquiries. Hermann Diels and Walter Kranz have edited the doxography ( A ) and the bing texts ( B ) of the Presocratic philosophers in Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Berlin 1951-19526. ( A citation like â€Å"DK 12A17? agencies: â€Å"Diels/Kranz. Anaximander. doxographical study no. 17? ) . | 2. The â€Å"Boundless† as Principle Harmonizing to Aristotle and Theophrastus. the first Grecian philosophers were looking for the â€Å"origin† or â€Å"principle† ( the Greek word â€Å"arche† has both significances ) of all things. Anaximander is said to hold identified it with â€Å"the Boundless† or â€Å"the Unlimited† ( Grecian: â€Å"apeiron. † that is. â€Å"that which has no boundaries† ) . Already in ancient times. it is complained that Anaximander did non explicate what he meant by â€Å"the Boundless. † More late. writers have disputed whether the Boundless should be interpreted as spatially or temporarily without bounds. or possibly as that which has no makings. or as that which is unlimited. Some bookmans have even defended the significance â€Å"that which is non experienced. † by associating the Grecian word â€Å"apeiron† non to â€Å"peras† ( â€Å"boundary. † â€Å"limit† ) . but to â€Å"perao† ( †Å"to experience. † â€Å"to apperceive† ) . The suggestion. nevertheless. is about resistless that Grecian doctrine. by doing the Boundless into the rule of all things. has started on a high degree of abstraction. On the other manus. some have pointed out that this usage of â€Å"apeiron† is untypical for Grecian idea. which was occupied with bound. symmetricalness and harmoniousness. The Pythagoreans placed the boundless ( the â€Å"apeiron† ) on the list of negative things. and for Aristotle. excessively. flawlessness became aligned with bound ( Grecian: â€Å"peras† ) . and therefore â€Å"apeiron† with imperfectness. Therefore. some writers suspect eastern ( Persian ) influence on Anaximander’s thoughts. Anaximenes ( d. 528 BCE ) Harmonizing to the lasting beginnings on his life. Anaximenes flourished in the mid sixth century BCE and died around 528. He is the 3rd philosopher of the Milesian School of doctrine. so named because like Thales and Anaximander. Anaximenes was an dweller of Miletus. in Ionia ( ancient Greece ) . Theophrastus notes that Anaximenes was an associate. and perchance a pupil. of Anaximander’s. Anaximenes is best known for his philosophy that air is the beginning of all things. In this manner. he differed with his predecessors like Thales. who held that H2O is the beginning of all things. and Anaximander. who thought that all things came from an unspecified boundless material. 2. Doctrine of Change Given his philosophy that all things are composed of air. Anaximenes suggested an interesting qualitative history of natural alteration: [ Air ] differs in kernel in conformity with its rareness or denseness. When it is thinned it becomes fire. while when it is condensed it becomes air current. so cloud. when still more condensed it becomes H2O. so Earth. so stones. Everything else comes from these. ( DK13A5 ) Influence on later Doctrine Anaximenes’ theory of consecutive alteration of affair by rarefaction and condensation was influential in ulterior theories. It is developed by Heraclitus ( DK22B31 ) . and criticized by Parmenides ( DK28B8. 23-24. 47-48 ) . Anaximenes’ general theory of how the stuffs of the universe arise is adopted by Anaxagoras ( DK59B16 ) . even though the latter has a really different theory of affair. Both Melissus ( DK30B8. 3 ) and Plato ( Timaeus 49b-c ) see Anaximenes’ theory as supplying a common-sense account of alteration. Diogenes of Apollonia makes air the footing of his explicitly monistic theory. The Hippocratic treatise On Breaths uses air as the cardinal construct in a theory of diseases. By supplying cosmogonic histories with a theory of alteration. Anaximenes separated them from the kingdom of mere guess and made them. at least in construct. scientific theories capable of proving. Thales of Miletus ( c. 620 BCE – c. 546 BCE ) The ancient Greek philosopher Thales was born in Miletus in Greek Ionia. Aristotle. the major beginning for Thales’s doctrine and scientific discipline. identified Thales as the first individual to look into the basic rules. the inquiry of the arising substances of affair and. hence. as the laminitis of the school of natural doctrine. Thales was interested in about everything. look intoing about all countries of cognition. doctrine. history. scientific discipline. mathematics. technology. geographics. and political relations. He proposed theories to explicate many of the events of nature. the primary substance. the support of the Earth. and the cause of alteration. Thales was much involved in the jobs of uranology and provided a figure of accounts of cosmogonic events which traditionally involved supernatural entities. His oppugning attack to the apprehension of celestial phenomena was the beginning of Grecian uranology. Thales’ hypotheses were new and bold. and in liberating phenomena from reverent intercession. he paved the manner towards scientific enterprise. He founded the Milesian school of natural doctrine. developed the scientific method. and initiated the first western enlightenment. A figure of anecdotes is closely connected to Thales’ probes of the universe. When considered in association with his hypotheses they take on added significance and are most informative. Thales was extremely esteemed in ancient times. and a missive cited by Diogenes Laertius. and purporting to be from Anaximenes to Pythagoras. advised that all our discourse should get down with a mention to Thales ( D. L. II. 4 ) . 1. The Hagiographas of Thales Doubts have ever existed about whether Thales wrote anything. but a figure of ancient studies recognition him with Hagiographas. Simplicius ( Diels. Dox. p. 475 ) specifically attributed to Thales writing of the alleged Nautical Star-guide. Diogenes Laertius raised uncertainties about genuineness. but wrote that ‘according to others [ Thales ] wrote nil but two treatises. one On the Solstice and one On the Equinox‘ ( D. L. I. 23 ) . Lobon of Argus asserted that the Hagiographas of Thales amounted to two hundred lines ( D. L. I. 34 ) . and Plutarch associated Thales with sentiments and histories expressed in poetry ( Plutarch. De Pyth. or. 18. 402 Tocopherol ) . Hesychius. recorded that ‘ [ Thales ] wrote on heavenly affairs in heroic poetry. on the equinox. and much else’ ( DK. 11A2 ) . Callimachus credited Thales with the sage advice that sailing masters should voyage by Ursa Minor ( D. L. I. 23 ) . advice which may hold been in authorship. Diogenes references a poet. Choerilus. who declared that ‘ [ Thales ] was the first to keep the immortality of the soul’ ( D. L. I. 24 ) . and in De Anima. Aristotle’s words ‘from what is recorded about [ Thales ] ‘ . indicate that Aristotle was working from a written beginning. Diogenes recorded that ‘ [ Thales ] seems by some histories to hold been the first to analyze uranology. the first to foretell occultations of the Sun and to repair the solstices ; so Eudemus in his History of Astronomy. It was this which gained for him the esteem of Xenophanes and Herodotus and the notice of Heraclitus and Democritus’ ( D. L. I. 23 ) . Eudemus who wrote a History of Astronomy. and besides on geometry and divinity. must be considered as a possible beginning for the hypotheses of Thales. The information provided by Diogenes is the kind of stuff which he would hold included in his History of Astronomy. and it is possible that the rubrics On the Solst ice. and On the Equinox were available to Eudemus. Xenophanes. Herodotus. Heraclitus and Democritus were familiar with the work of Thales. and may hold had a work by Thales available to them. A solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice each twelvemonth when the Sun reaches its highest place in the sky as seen from the North or South Pole. The word solstice is derived from the Latin colloidal suspension ( Sun ) and sistere ( to stand still ) . because at the solstices. the Sun bases still in decline ; that is. the seasonal motion of the Sun’s way ( as seen from Earth ) comes to a halt before change by reversaling way. The solstices. together with the equinoxes. are connected with the seasons. In many civilizations the solstices grade either the beginning or the center of winter and summer. The term solstice can besides be used in a broader sense. as the day of the month ( twenty-four hours ) when this occurs. The twenty-four hours of the solstice is either the â€Å"longest twenty-four hours of the year† ( in summer ) or the â€Å"shortest twenty-four hours of the year† ( in winter ) for any topographic point on Earth. because the length of clip between dawn and sunset on that twenty-four hours is the annual upper limit or lower limit for that topographic point. Proclus recorded that Thales was followed by a great wealth of geometricians. most of whom remain as honoured names. They commence with Mamercus. who was a student of Thales. and include Hippias of Elis. Pythagoras. Anaxagoras. Eudoxus of Cnidus. Philippus of Mende. Euclid. and Eudemus. a friend of Aristotle. who wrote histories of arithmetic. of uranology. and of geometry. and many lesser known name s. It is possible that Hagiographas of Thales were available to some of these work forces. Any records which Thales may hold kept would hold been an advantage in his ain work. This is particularly true of mathematics. of the day of the months and times determined when repairing the solstices. the places of stars. and in fiscal minutess. It is hard to believe that Thales would non hold written down the information he had gathered in his travels. peculiarly the geometry he investigated in Egypt and his measurement of the tallness of the pyramid. his hypotheses about nature. and the cause of alteration. Proclus acknowledged Thales as the inventor of a figure of specific theorems ( A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements 65. 8-9 ; 250. 16-17 ) . This suggests that Eudemus. Proclus’s beginning had before him the written records of Thales’s finds. How did Thales ‘prove’ his theorems if non in written words and studies? The plants On the Solstice. On the Equinox. which were attributed to Thales ( D. L. I. 23 ) . and the ‘Nautical Star usher. to which Simplicius referred. may hold been beginnings for the History of Astronomy of Eudemus ( D. L. I. 23 ) . Pythagoras ( c. 570—c. 495 BCE ) The presocratic Greek philosopher Pythagoras must hold been one of the world’s greatest individuals. but he wrote nil. and it is difficult to state how much of the philosophy we know as Pythagorean is due to the laminitis of the society and how much is subsequently development. It is besides difficult to state how much of what we are told about the life of Pythagoras is trusty ; for a mass of fable gathered around his name at an early day of the month. Sometimes he is represented as a adult male of scientific discipline. and sometimes as a sermonizer of mysterious philosophies. and we might be tempted to see one or other of those characters as entirely historical. The truth is that there is no demand to reject either of the traditional positions. The brotherhood of mathematical mastermind and mysticism is common plenty. Originally from Samos. Pythagoras founded at Kroton ( in southern Italy ) a society which was at one time a spiritual community and a scientific school. Such a organic structure was bound to excite green-eyed monster and misgiving. and we hear of many battles. Pythagoras himself had to fly from Kroton to Metapontion. where he died. It is stated that he was a adherent of Anaximander. his uranology was the natural development of Anaximander’s. Besides. the manner in which the Pythagorean geometry developed besides bears informant to its descent from that of Miletos. The great job at this day of the month was the duplicate of the square. a job which gave rise to the theorem of the square on the hypotenuse. normally known still as the Pythagorean proposition ( Euclid. I. 47 ) . If we were right in presuming that Thales worked with the old 3:4:5 trigon. the connexion is obvious. Pythagoras argued that there are three sorts of work forces. merely as there are three categories of aliens who come to the Olympic Games. The lowest consists of those who come to purchase and sell. and following above them are those who come to vie. Best of all are those who merely come to look on. Work force may be classified consequently as lovers of wisdom. lovers of award. and lovers of addition. That seems to connote the philosophy of the three-party psyche. which is besides attributed to the early Pythagoreans on good authorization. though it is common now to impute it to Plato. There are. nevertheless. clear mentions to it before his clip. and it agrees much better with the general mentality of the Pythagoreans. The comparing of human life to a assemblage like the Games was frequently repeated in ulterior yearss. Pythagoras besides taught the philosophy of Rebirth or transmigration. which we may hold learned from the modern-day Orphics. Xenophanes made merriment of him for feigning to acknowledge the voice of a bygone friend in the ululation of a beaten Canis familiaris. Empedocles seems to be mentioning to him when he speaks of a adult male who could retrieve what happened ten or 20 coevalss before. It was on this that the philosophy of Recollection. which plays so great a portion in Plato. was based. The things we perceive with the senses. Plato argues. remind us of things we knew when the psyche was out of the organic structure and could comprehend world straight. There is more trouble about the cosmology of Pythagoras. Barely any school of all time professed such fear for its founder’s authorization as the Pythagoreans. ‘The Master said so’ was their war cry. On the other manus. few schools have shown so much capacity for advancement and for accommodating themselves to new conditions. Pythagoras started from the cosmical system of Anaximenes. Aristotle tells us that the Pythagoreans represented the universe as inhaling ‘air’ signifier the boundless mass outside it. and this ‘air’ is identified with ‘the unlimited’ . When. nevertheless. we come to the procedure by which things are developed out of the ‘unlimited’ . we observe a great alteration. We hear nil more of ‘separating out’ or even of rarefaction and condensation. Alternatively of that we have the theory that what gives signifier to the Unlimited is the Limit. That is the great part of Pythagoras to philosophy. and we must seek to understand it. Now the map of the Limit is normally illustrated from the humanistic disciplines of music and medical specialty. and we have seen how of import these two humanistic disciplines were for Pythagoreans. so it is natural to deduce that the key to its significance is to be found in them. It may be taken as certain that Pythagoras himself discovered the numerical ratios which determine the accordant intervals of the musical graduated table. Similar to musical intervals. in medical specialty there are antonyms. such as the hot and the cold. the moisture and the prohibitionist. and it is the concern of the doctor to bring forth a proper ‘blend’ of these in the human organic structure. In a well-known transition of Plato’s Phaedo ( 86 B ) we are told by Simmias that the Pythagoreans held the organic structure to be strung like an instrument to a certain pitch. hot and cold. moisture and dry taking the topographic point of high and low in music. Musical tuning and wellness are likewise agencies originating from the application of Limit to the Unlimited. It was natural for Pythagoras to look for something of the same sort in the universe at big. Briefly stated. the philosophy of Pythagoras was that all things are Numberss. In certain cardinal instances. the early Pythagoreans represented Numberss and explained their belongingss by agencies of points arranged in certain ‘figures’ or forms. Zeno’s Paradoxes In the 5th century B. C. E. . Zeno of Elea offered statements that led to decisions beliing what we all know from our physical experience–that smugglers run. that arrows fly. and that there are many different things in the universe. The statements were paradoxes for the ancient Grecian philosophers. Because most of the statements turn crucially on the impression that infinite and clip are boundlessly divisible—for illustration. that for any distance there is such a thing as half that distance. and so on—Zeno was the first individual in history to demo that the construct of eternity is debatable. In his Achilles Paradox. Achilles races to catch a slower runner–for illustration. a tortoise that is creeping off from him. The tortoise has a head start. so if Achilles hopes to catch it. he must run at least to the topographic point where the tortoise soon is. but by the clip he arrives at that place. it will hold crawled to a new topographic point. so so Achilles must run to this new topographic point. but the tortoise interim will hold crawled on. and so forth. Achilles will neer catch the tortoise. says Zeno. Therefore. good logical thinking shows that fast smugglers neer can catch slow 1s. So much the worse for the claim that gesture truly occurs. Zeno says in defence of his wise man Parmenides who had argued that gesture is an semblance. Although practically no bookmans today would hold with Zeno’s decision. we can non get away the paradox by leaping up from our place and trailing down a tortoise. nor by stating Achilles should run to some other mark topographic point in front of where the tortoise is at the minute. What is required is an analysis of Zeno’s ain statement that does non acquire us embroiled in new paradoxes nor impoverish our mathematics and scientific discipline. This article explains his 10 known paradoxes and considers the interventions that have been offered. Zeno assumed distances and continuances can be divided into an existent eternity ( what we now call a transfinite eternity ) of indivisible parts. and he assumed these are excessively many for the smuggler to finish. Aristotle‘s intervention said Zeno should hold assumed there are merely possible eternities. and that neither topographic points nor times divide into indivisible parts. His intervention became the by and large recognized solution until the late nineteenth century. The current criterion intervention says Zeno was right to reason that a runner’s way contains an existent eternity of parts. but he was mistaken to presume this is excessively many. This intervention employs the setup of concretion which has proved its indispensableness for the development of modern scientific discipline. In the 20th century it eventually became clear that forbiding existent eternities. as Aristotle wanted. shackles the growing of set theory and finally of mathematics and natural philosophies. This standard intervention took 100s of old ages to hone and was due to the flexibleness of intellectuals who were willing to replace old theories and their constructs with more fruitful 1s. despite the harm done to common sense and our naif intuitions. The article ends by researching newer interventions of the paradoxes—and related paradoxes such as Thomson’s Lamp Paradox—that were developed since the 1950s. Parmenides ( B. 510 BCE ) Parmenides was a Grecian philosopher and poet. Born of an celebrated household about BCE. 510. at Elea in Lower Italy. and is is the main representative of the Eleatic doctrine. He was held in high regard by his fellow-citizens for his first-class statute law. to which they ascribed the prosperity and wealth of the town. He was besides admired for his model life. A â€Å"Parmenidean life† was proverbial among the Greeks. He is normally represented as a adherent of Xenophanes. Parmenides wrote after Heraclitus. and in witting resistance to him. given the apparent allusion to Hericlitus: â€Å"for whom it is and is non. the same and non the same. and all things travel in opposite directions† ( Fr. 6. 8 ) . Little more is known of his life than that he stopped at Athens on a journey in his 65th twelvemonth. and there became acquainted with the vernal Socrates. That must hold been in the center of the 5th century BCE. . or shortly after it. Parmenides broke with the older Ionic prose tradition by composing in hexameter poetry. His didactic verse form. called On Nature. survives in fragments. although the Proem ( or introductory discourse ) of the work has been preserved. Parmenides was a immature adult male when he wrote it. for the goddess who reveals the truth to him addresses him as â€Å"youth. † The work is considered unartistic. Its Hesiodic manner was appropriate for the cosmology he describes in the 2nd portion. but is ill-sorted to the waterless dialectic of the first. Parmenides was no born poet. and we must inquire what led him to take this new going. The illustration of Xenophanes’ poetic Hagiographas is non a complete account ; for the poesy of Parmenides is as unlike that of Xenophanes as it good can be. and his manner is more similar Hesiod and the Orphics. In the Proem Parmenides describes his acclivity to the place of the goddess who is supposed to talk the balance of the poetries ; this i s a reflection of the conventional acclivities into Eden which were about every bit common as descents into snake pit in the revelatory literature of those yearss. The Proem opens with Parmenides stand foring himself as borne on a chariot and attended by the Sunmaidens who have quitted the Halls of Night to steer him on his journey. They pass along the main road till they come to the Gate of Night and Day. which is locked and barred. The key is in the maintaining of Dike ( Right ) . the Avenger. who is persuaded to unlock it by the Sunmaidens. They pass in through the gate and are now. of class. in the kingdoms of Day. The end of the journey is the castle of a goddess who welcomes Parmenides and instructs him in the two ways. that of Truth and the delusory manner of Belief. in which is no truth at all. All this is described without inspiration and in a purely conventional mode. so it must be interpreted by the canons of the revelatory manner. It is clearly meant to bespeak that Parmenides had been converted. that he had passed from mistake ( dark ) to truth ( twenty-four hours ) . and the Two Wayss must stand for his former mistake and the trut h which is now revealed to him. There is ground to believe that the Way of Belief is an history of Pythagorean cosmology. In any instance. it is certainly impossible to see it as anything else than a description of some mistake. The goddess says so in words that can non be explained off. Further. this erroneous belief is non the ordinary man’s position of the universe. but an luxuriant system. which seems to be a natural development the Ionian cosmology on certain lines. and there is no other system but the Pythagorean that fulfils this demand. To this it has been objected that Parmenides would non hold taken the problem to elaborate in item a system he had wholly rejected. but that is to misidentify the character of the revelatory convention. It is non Parmenides. but the goddess. that expounds the system. and it is for this ground that the beliefs described are said to be those of ‘mortals’ . Now a description of the acclivity of the psyche would be rather uncomplete without a image of the part from which it had escaped. The goddess must uncover the two ways at the farewell of which Parmenides stands. and bid him take the better. The rise of mathematics in the Pythagorean school had revealed for the first clip the power of idea. To the mathematician of all work forces it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be. and this is the rule from which Parmenides starts. It is impossible to believe what is non. and it is impossible for what can non be thought to be. The great inquiry. Is it or is it non? is hence tantamount to the inquiry. Can it be thought or non? In any instance. the work therefore has two divisions. The first discusses the truth. and the 2nd the universe of semblance — that is. the universe of the senses and the erroneous sentiments of world founded upon them. In his sentiment truth lies in the perceptual experience that being is. and mistake in the thought that non-existence besides can be. Nothing can hold existent being but what is imaginable ; therefore to be imagined and to be able to be are the same thing. and there is no development. The kernel of what is imaginable is incapable of development. imperishable. changeless. boundless. and indivisible. What is assorted and changeable. all development. is a false apparition. Perception is thought directed to the pure kernel of being ; the phenomenal universe is a psychotic belief. and the sentiments formed refering it can merely be unlikely. Parmenides goes on to see in the visible radiation of this rule the effects of stating that anything is. In the first topographic point. it can non hold come into being. If it had. it must hold arisen from nil or from something. It can non hold arisen from nil ; for there is no nil. It can non hold arisen from something ; for here is nil else than what is. Nor can anything else besides itself come into being ; for there can be no empty infinite in which it could make so. Is it or is it non? If it is. so it is now. all at one time. In this manner Parmenides refutes all histories of the beginning of the universe. Ex nihilo nihil tantrum. Further. if it is. it merely is. and it can non be more or less. There is. hence. as much of it in one topographic point as in another. ( That makes rarefaction and condensation impossible. ) it is uninterrupted and indivisible ; for there is nil but itself which could forestall its parts being in contact with one another. It is hence full. a uninterrupted indivisible plenum. ( That is directed against the Pythagorean theory of a discontinuous reality. ) Further. it is immoveable. If it moved. it must travel into empty infinite. and empty infinite is nil. and there is no nil. Besides it is finite and spherical ; for it can non be in one way any more than in another. and the domain is the lone figure of which this can be said. What is. therefore a finite. spherical. motionless. uninterrupted plenum. and there is nil beyond it. Coming into being and discontinuing to be are mere ‘names’ . and so is gesture. and still more colour and the similar. They are non even ideas ; for a idea must be a idea of something that is. and none of these can be. Such is the decision to which the position of the existent as a individual organic structure necessarily leads. and there is no flight from it. The ‘matter’ of our physical text-books is merely the existent of Parmenides ; and. unless we can happen room for something else than affair. we are shut up into his history of world. No subsequent system could afford to disregard this. but of class it was impossible to assent for good in a philosophy like that of Parmenides. It deprives the universe we know of all claim to existence. and reduces it to something which is barely even an semblance. If we are to give an apprehensible history of the universe. we must surely present gesture once more someway. That can neer be taken for granted any more. as it was by the early cosmologists ; we must try to explicate it if we are to get away from the decisions of Parmenides. Heraclitus ( Florida. c. 500 BCE ) A Grecian philosopher of the late sixth century BCE. Heraclitus criticizes his predecessors and coevalss for their failure to see the integrity in experience. He claims to denote an everlasting Word ( Logos ) harmonizing to which all things are one. in some sense. Antonyms are necessary for life. but they are unified in a system of balanced exchanges. The universe itself consists of a law-like interchange of elements. symbolized by fire. Thus the universe is non to be identified with any peculiar substance. but instead with an on-going procedure governed by a jurisprudence of alteration. The implicit in jurisprudence of nature besides manifests itself as a moral jurisprudence for human existences. Heraclitus is the first Western philosopher to travel beyond physical theory in hunt of metaphysical foundations and moral applications. Anaxagoras ( c. 500—428 BCE ) Anaxagoras of Clazomenae was an of import Presocratic natural philosopher and scientist who lived and taught in Athens for about 30 old ages. He gained ill fame for his mercenary positions. peculiarly his contention that the Sun was a fiery stone. This led to charges of impiousness. and he was sentenced to decease by the Athenian tribunal. He avoided this punishment by go forthing Athens. and he spent his staying old ages in expatriate. While Anaxagoras proposed theories on a assortment of topics. he is most celebrated for two theories. First. he speculated that in the physical universe everything contains a part of everything else. His observation of how nutrition works in animate beings led him to reason that in order for the nutrient an animate being chows to turn into bone. hair. flesh. and so away. it must already incorporate all of those components within it. The 2nd theory of significance is Anaxagoras’ predication of Mind ( Nous ) as the initiating and regulating rule of the universe. Democritus ( 460—370 BCE ) Democritus was born at Abdera. about 460 BCE. although harmonizing to some 490. His male parent was from a baronial household and of great wealth. and contributed mostly towards the amusement of the ground forces of Xerxes on his return to Asia. As a wages for this service the Iranian sovereign gave and other Abderites nowadayss and left among them several Magi. Democritus. harmonizing to Diogenes Laertius. was instructed by these Magi in uranology and divinity. After the decease of his male parent he traveled in hunt of wisdom. and devoted his heritage to this intent. amounting to one hundred endowments. He is said to hold visited Egypt. Ethiopia. Persia. and India. Whether. in the class of his travels. he visited Athens or studied under Anaxagoras is unsure. During some portion of his life he was instructed in Pythagoreanism. and was a adherent of Leucippus. After several old ages of going. Democritus returned to Abdera. with no agencies of subsistence. His brother Damosis. nevertheless. took him in. Harmonizing to the jurisprudence of Abdera. whoever wasted his patrimony would be deprived of the rites of entombment. Democritus. trusting to avoid this shame. gave public talks. Petronius relates that he was acquainted with the virtuousnesss of herbs. workss. and rocks. and that he spent his life in doing experiments upon natural organic structures. He acquired celebrity with his cognition of natural phenomena. and predicted alterations in the conditions. He used this ability to do people believe that he could foretell future events. They non merely viewed him as something more than person. but even proposed to set him in control of their public personal businesss. He preferred a contemplative to an active life. and hence declined these public awards and passed the balance of his yearss in purdah. Recognition can non be given to the narrative that Democritus spent his leisure hours in chemical researches after the philosopher’s rock — the dream of a ulterior age ; or to the narrative of his conversation with Hippocrates refering Democritus’s supposed lunacy. as based on specious letters. Democritus has been normally known as â€Å"The Laughing Philosopher. † and it is soberly related by Seneca that he neer appeared in public with out showing his disdain of human follies while express joying. Consequently. we find that among his fellow-citizens he had the name of â€Å"the mocker† . He died at more than a 100 old ages of age. It is said that from so on he spent his yearss and darks in caverns and burial chambers. and that. in order to get the hang his rational modules. he blinded himself with firing glass. This narrative. nevertheless. is discredited by the authors who mention it insofar as they say he wrote books and cleft animate beings. nei ther of which could be done good without eyes. Democritus expanded the atomic theory of Leucippus. He maintained the impossibleness of spliting things ad infinitum. From the trouble of delegating a beginning of clip. he argued the infinity of bing nature. of null infinite. and of gesture. He supposed the atoms. which are originally similar. to be impenetrable and have a denseness proportionate to their volume. All gestures are the consequence of active and inactive fondness. He drew a differentiation between primary gesture and its secondary effects. that is. impulse and reaction. This is the footing of the jurisprudence of necessity. by which all things in nature are ruled. The universes which we see — with all their belongingss of enormousness. resemblance. and dissimilitude — consequence from the eternal multiplicity of falling atoms. The human psyche consists of ball-shaped atoms of fire. which impart motion to the organic structure. Keeping his atomic theory throughout. Democritus introduced the hypothesis of images or graven images ( eidola ) . a sort of emanation from external objects. which make an feeling on our senses. and from the influence of which he deduced esthesis ( sensation ) and thought ( cognition ) . He distinguished between a rude. progressive. and hence false perceptual experience and a true one. In the same mode. consistent with this theory. he accounted for the popular impressions of Deity ; partially through our incapacity to understand to the full the phenomena of which we are informants. and partially from the feelings communicated by certain existences ( eidola ) of tremendous stature and resembling the human figure which inhabit the air. We know these from dreams and the causes of divination. He carried his theory into practical doctrine besides. puting down that felicity consisted in an even disposition. From this he deduced his moral rules and prudential axioms. It was from Democritus that Epicurus borrowed the chief characteristics of his doctrine. Empedocles ( c. 492—432 BCE ) Empedocles ( of Acagras in Sicily ) was a philosopher and poet: one of the most of import of the philosophers working before Socrates ( the Presocratics ) . and a poet of outstanding ability and of great influence upon later poets such as Lucretius. His plant On Nature and Purifications ( whether they are two verse forms or merely one – see below ) exist in more than 150 fragments. He has been regarded diversely as a materialist physicist. a shamanic prestidigitator. a mystical theologist. a therapist. a democratic politician. a life God. and a fraud. To him is attributed the innovation of the four-element theory of affair ( Earth. air. fire. and H2O ) . one of the earliest theories of atom natural philosophies. set frontward apparently to deliver the phenomenal universe from the inactive monism of Parmenides. Empedocles’ world-view is of a cosmic rhythm of ageless alteration. growing and decay. in which two personified cosmic forces. Love and Strife. engage in an ageless conflict for domination. In psychological science and moralss Empedocles was a follower of Pythagoras. hence a truster in the transmigration of psyches. and therefore besides a vegetarian. He claims to be a daimon. a Godhead or potentially godly being. who. holding been banished from the immortals Gods for ‘three times infinite years’ for perpetrating the wickedness of meat-eating and forced to endure consecutive reincarnations in an purificatory journey through the different orders of nature and elements of the universe. has now achieved the most perfect of human provinces and will be reborn as an immortal. He besides claims apparently charming powers including the ability to resuscitate the dead and to command the air currents and rains.

Suggestopedia Essays

Suggestopedia Essays Suggestopedia Essay Suggestopedia Essay It is also known as desuggestopedia. It was developed by the Bulgarian psychiatrist-educator Georgi Lozanov. It is a specific set of learner recommendations. Among the subliminal influences the fears of the learners that they will be unable to perform and are limited in terms of their ability to learn is the main issue Suggestopedia deals with. It is believed that due to those fears and some other possible negative effects such as the physical effects of the learning environment, learners’ minds cannot process and retain information at the maximum efficiency. This also leads to a lack of confidence and creativity. Thus it is significant to send all kinds of negative effects off the students’ internal environment (the self) and external environment (the classroom) through â€Å"desuggestion† by creating a learning atmosphere where all messages have a positive emotional content. In addition to this the memory banks of the learners should be filled with pleasant memories through â€Å"suggestion†. It is believed that if this was done, the learners would be able to overcome the barriers to learning and use their maximum potential capacity, which means retention and recall of what has been learnt in the long term. Characteristics Decoration of the classroom Furniture Arrangement of the classroom Use of music Authoritative behavior of the teacher Memorization in learning by their method seems to be accelerated 25 times over any other conventional method. Some techniques have been borrowed from raja yoga, from soviet psychology Lozanov started to think that any student can be taught a given subject matter at the same level. He says it is not important if students studies or not outside the classroom. Music functions Music has three functions: 1- To facilitate the establishment and maintenance of personal relations 2- To bring about increased self-esteem through increased self-satisfaction in musical performance 3- To use the unique potential of rhythm to energize and bring order. Theory of language and learning It does not exactly have a theory of language. He does not care about language elements or organization. He sometimes refers to texts and directs the duggestopedic to acts of communication. He calls language as â€Å"the material†. Authority It suggests that people will remember better if the information comes from an authoritative source. Infantilization Authority implies that teacher-student relation is like parent to children relation. Double-plannedness Students learn from instructions and environment. The bright decoration, the musical background, the shape of the chairs, and the personality of the teacher are as important as the materials. Intonation, rhythm, and concert pseudo-passiveness Varying the tone and rhythm makes the class less boring and makes it more meaningful. Pseudo passiveness refers to the relax attitude that is created with music background. Design: objectives, syllabus, learning activities, roles of the learner, teachers and materials. Objective: to deliver advanced conversational proficiency quickly. Students must learn lists of vocabulary pairs, and set goals for themselves. A suggestopedia course lasts 30days, and consists of 10 units. 4 hours a day, 6 times a week. Each unit consists of a dialogue of 1200 words or so, with a vocabulary list and a grammatical commentary. During the course there are 2 chances for simplification of the material. Students will be provided a chance to practice what learned in the middles of the course in a setting where they should use it, and the last day that there will be a participation of every student. They must prepare a role play using the vocabulary studied. Procedures I can use the language. I’m learning the language Language is reinforced with music / teacher actions Language is integrated into the SS’ personality using different activities (Repetition is avoided): Acting out portions of the text Singing songs/ playing games Telling stories Carrying out short conversations/ emotional role-plays Students do not do homework. They read the text before going to bed Neurolinguistic John Grindler and Richard Bandler created a set of training techniques and a philosophy in the mid1970s called Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). They were really interested in the way people influence each other and in how a behavior could be duplicated. They thought of this method as a system of techniques therapists could use in building rapport with clients, gathering information about their internal and external views of the world, and helping them achieve goals and bring about personal change. (Richards and Rodgers, 125) This technique has also been used in other fields but education such as: sports training, marketing, management, etc. Approach Theory of language and learning This theory has no relation with linguistics itself, it refers to a theory of communication. It tries to explain verbal and nonverbal information. Learning effective behaviors is seen as an issue of learning. It is supposed to move from controlled stages to automatic processes. This approach worries about how people see the world through the five senses and how people picture it in their mind. Language is used not only in speech but also in thoughts. The programming part of this approach trains us to think, speak, and act in a new positive way in order to release our potential and reach our goals. Design: Principles 1- Outcomes: the goals or ends. NLP says if you know what you want it will be easier to get it. 2- Rapport: a factor that is essential for effective communication, maximizing similarities and minimizing differences among people at a nonconscious level 3- Sensory acuity: noticing what another person is communicating consciously and nonverbally. Using your senses, listen to, looking to, and feeling what is actually happening. 4- Flexibility: doing things differently if what you are doing is not working. Having a range of skills to do something else or something different. Keep changing what you do until you get what you want. NLP Presuppositions There are thirteen presuppositions that guide the application of NLP: 1- Mind and body are interconnected. They are part of the same system, they affect each other. 2- The map is not the territory: we all have different maps of the world. 3- There is no failure, only feedback†¦ and renewed opportunity for success. 4- The map becomes the territory, what you believe is true, either is true or becomes true. 5- Knowing what you want helps you get it. 6- The resources we need are within us. Communication is nonverbal as well as verbal. 8- The nonconscious mind is benevolent. 9- Communication nonconscious as well as conscious. 10- All behavior has a positive intention. 11- The meaning of my communication is the response I get. 12- Modeling excellent behavior leads to excellence. 13- In any system, the element with the greatest flexibility will have the most influence on that system. Conclusion These two chapte rs give totally different points of view of acquiring a language. Both of them mention techniques for improving concentration and acceleration more than linguistics itself. Approaches give very good explanations of why they work, anyhow teachers must know in deep the techniques in order to apply them in the classroom, and they need time and preparation. Teachers usually do not count with a lot of time with the students. And usually teachers do not have the necessary resources to develop them correctly. Bibliography Richards, Jack C, and Theodore S Rodgers. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press, 2001. Print. 7

Four tips for effective tweeting - Emphasis

Four tips for effective tweeting Four tips for effective tweeting If you were nervous about using Twitter in a professional capacity already, the past months headlines about 10,000 tweeters having potentially libelled Conservative peer Lord McAlpine probably wont have helped your confidence. But tweeting doesnt have to be the minefield its often presented as. Just remember to treat it with the same respect that you would any public communication and you cant go far wrong, writes Cathy Relf. Here are four tips that youd naturally apply to face-to-face or written communication. Apply the same rules to your tweets and youll soon find youre opening up a whole new channel of sector-specific news, networking and chat. 1. Strike a balance One of the trickier aspects of tweeting in connection with work is that you need to balance being professional with being personable. If everything you tweet is dry, factual and work-related, few people are likely to want to follow you. On the other hand, if you only ever tweet about football and nights out, youre likely to alienate colleagues and clients with whom you have only profession in common. The answer is moderation. Of course its fine to tweet about both work and football just make sure theres a balance. Twitter is an informal space and your followers are hoping to see a little personality, otherwise theyd simply look you up on your company website. They just dont want to know what you had for breakfast. Dont monitor your follower numbers too closely, though, or read too much into losing a few now and then. If your follower count is on a general upward trend, thats good. But dont check it more than once a week. It will fluctuate daily and hourly, partly because some people use programs that follow and unfollow accounts on their behalf. Incidentally, we wouldnt recommend you do this, any more than youd employ someone to make and dispose of your face-to-face acquaintances. 2. Dont be a bore Remember, just like a conversation in the office or the pub, its not meant to be a monologue. If people mention you or respond to your tweets, reply to them. If the only thing that responds to your tweets is tumbleweed, resist the urge to just repeat the same tweets again, and instead ask yourself why. Perhaps you tweeted at a time when people tend not to be looking at Twitter. (There are apps that can help you with this.) Commuting hours and lunchbreaks are often good times to get conversations going. Or perhaps your tweets arent reaching many people simply because you dont have many followers in which case, try following other people and responding to their tweets. Theyre likely to do the same in return. Or perhaps youre tweeting things that dont invite a response. Try asking a question to get things going. In fact, one of the best things about Twitter is that it puts a whole community of communicators at your fingertips, many of whom are willing to share their opinions. Its a great opportunity for brainstorming and feedback. For example, when I was planning this article, I thought it might be helpful to start by asking people what kind of behaviour they disliked on Twitter. The answers came flooding in (occasionally a little swearily, be warned), and Ive used Storify to collate them. 3. Keep it wise and legal Remember that unless youve set your account to protected (where only your followers can see your tweets), everything you write is visible to everyone, whether theyre a member of Twitter or not. So its not the place to complain about your boss, your colleagues, your clients or anyone else. Be as careful with the truth on Twitter as you would when publishing material in any other place. Libel is the publication of matter that is false and defamatory. That includes tweets and RTs, even if you delete them later and even if your account is set to protected. Earlier this month, lawyers for Lord McAlpine identified more than 10,000 potentially libellous tweets incorrectly linking him with child sex abuse. The fact that the tweets were triggered by a misleading Newsnight report hasnt prevented Lord McAlpine taking action against some of the tweeters. Nor has the fact that in some cases they made only mysterious observations, rather than direct allegations. Theres a simple way to stay out of this kind of trouble: never tweet or retweet anything that youre not one hundred per cent sure is true, especially if it has the potential to damage the reputation of a person or a company. 4. Learn the lingo Youre probably as keen on LOLs and ROFLs as we are (ie not very), so were not going to discuss those here. However, there are a few Twitter-specific abbreviations that you need to know, if you dont already. DM direct message. These can only be seen by the person youre sending them to. Everything else is visible to everyone. You can only DM someone if they already follow you, and they can only reply if you follow them. RT retweet. There are two ways to RT. Either you can click the retweet symbol to replicate the original message exactly, or you can do a manual retweet by copying and pasting the text, preceded by RT @username. This allows you to add your own comment at the start of the tweet. MT modified tweet. Sometimes when you do a manual RT youll run out of space and have to cut a little of the original. In this case, write MT @username instead. HT hat tip. When you want to tweet about something that you found out about via another user, but you dont want to use their own words, its polite to mention them with an HT (or a via). #hashtags. These are meant to make searching for subjects easier. So, for example, if youre tweeting something about Brighton, you might hashtag the word #Brighton. However, people often use them to add witticisms to the end of their tweets. #becausetheythinkitsclever (Incidentally, you cant use punctuation in a hashtag. Yes, that its pained me.) FF follow Fridays. On Fridays, some users share their favourite tweeters to encourage others to follow them. Its a compliment, so its polite to thank them. But retweeting it to show off your popularity is a no-no. In the December issue of the Write Away e-bulletin, we show you five ways that tools and apps can make your tweeting more effective.

Human resources system for employee self-self of royal mail Essay

Human resources system for employee self-self of royal mail - Essay Example It offers several services through these subsidiaries, which include parcel delivery system, postal mail services, general logistic system, and general services related to post (Russell, 2005 p45). Royal Mail focuses on delivering letters and packages to all part of the world. Currently, this company has 14,300 post office branches and 113,000 post boxes throughout the UK, which collect packages, letters and parcels from over 87,000 individuals and businesses. These commodities are collected through a diverse collection and transportation network that includes 33,000 bicycles and 30,000 vehicles (Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons Committee: Trade and Industry, 2006 p23). This paper provides strengths and weaknesses (internal analysis) of Royal Mail’s human resource management system for employees, and recommendation that should be adopted to improve its human resource management system and employees’ performances and efficiencies. Strengths The highly skilled and hard working employees, who are regularly motivated by the financial resources and efficient management, form the key strengths of Royal Mail. The company’s employees are offered improved new range of training and assured performance related pays (Plunkett, 2009 p76). Some of the Royal Mail’s employees are regarded as the company’s valuable assets. ... esource management system, and they include: the present contracts were renewed, and new standardized contracts were awarded to the employees; the newly introduced techniques and machinery help the employees achieve a world class standard performance, the newly revised Pension scheme plans were going to be directed to those employees in the Royal Mail pension plan (Russell, 2005 p58); the new plan for early retirement and temporary redundancy were going to be implemented with an immediate effect, and the minimum wages and working hours were also revised. The Royal Mail’s human resource management also puts employees’ safety in the forefront of the priority list. In order to motivate its staff members, this company has improved its working condition, stress relief exercise, self appraisal process, first aid facilities, and changes employees’ job duties over some time. The HRM has also included increments and promotions into the new plan. The Royal Mail has also de veloped a new method of dealing with the Trade Union. The trade union has been given a vital position in the company’s management activities. The union has also been requested to help employees to conform to the Organizational rules and regulations, and achieve sustainable competitive advantage (Chancery House, 2008 p26). An effective system of communication between the HRM and the trade union was also developed. Weaknesses There have been frequent complaints from customers regarding missing parcels and letters in some Royal Mail’s retail outlets. Careful investigation revealed that some of the company’s staff members have been involved in a series of mail theft over the past few years (Brooks, 2003 p118). This has reduced the Royal Mails reputation and prestige before it esteemed customers. This

Explain the Asian Migration Hypothesis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Explain the Asian Migration Hypothesis - Essay Example pothesis indicates that even in those days, the population still exhibited genetic diversity—a thought that was previously non-existent (Faragher et al, 2011). According to this Asian Migration Hypothesis, the ancestors of Native Americans who were headed to the new world for greener pastures spent a considerable amount of time on Beringia—a landmass that existed during the glacial maximum extending from Northeastern Serbia to Western Alaska. Spending approximately 15000 years in this place, these would-be founders of the New World underwent a natural biological process that would genetically differentiate them with their Asian sisters (Raffet, 2007). Genetically speaking, these immigrants stayed long enough in Beringia for certain genetic mutations to accumulate. These newly accumulated mutations—referred to as clades in genetics, naturally differed with that of their Asian sisters and hence the dilemma on their origin. After stagnating at Beringia, this hypothesis indicates that entry to the New World was a rather swift than a gradual process (Raffet, 2007). Further analysis indicates that after this stagnation, the movement of these ancestors was bi-directional with some going back to Northeast Asia while others moved forward to the Americas from Beringia. Thus,the of flow gene between Siberia and the North American Arctic was bi-directional (Faragher et al,

BIOLOGY VOCABULARY AND ASSESSMENT Essay Example for Free

BIOLOGY VOCABULARY AND ASSESSMENT Essay 1. Binomial nomenclature: Linnaeus’s system of naming organisms, giving a scientific two-word name to each species- the first part being the genus, and the second the species 2. Class: taxonomic group that contains one or more related orders 3. Classification: grouping of organisms or objects based on a set of criteria that helps organize, communicate, and retain information 4. Division: taxonomic term used instead of phylum to group related classes of plants and bacteria 5. Domain: taxonomic group of one or more kingdoms 6. Family: taxonomic group of similar, related genera that is smaller than a genus and larger than an order 7. Genus: taxonomic group of closely related species with a common ancestor 8. Kingdom: taxonomic group of closely related phyla or divisions 9. Order: taxonomic group that contains related families 10. Phylum: taxonomic group of related classes 11. Taxon: named group of organisms ex: phylum, species 12. Taxonomy: branch of biology that identifies, names, and classifies species based on their natural relationships. CH 17 SEC 2 13. Character: inherited morphological or biochemical feature that 14. Cladistics: taxonomic method that models evolutionary relationships based on shared derived characters and phylogenetic trees 15. Cladogram: branched diagrams that represents the hypothesized phylogeny or evolution of a species or group; uses bioinformatics, morphological studies, and information from DNA studies 16. Molecular clock: model that uses comparisons of DNA sequences to estimate phylogeny and rate of evolutionary change 17. Phylogney: evolutionary history of a species  CH 17 SEC 3 18. Archaea: the species classified in Domain Archaea 19. Fungus: unicellular or multicellular eukaryote that is stationary, absorbs nutrients from organic materials in the environment, and has cell walls that contain chitin 20. Protist: unicellular, multicellular, or  colonial eukaryote whose cell walls may contain cellulose; can be plant-like, animal-like, or fungus-like 17.1 ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS: 1. It is easier to communicate and retain information about organisms when they are categorized into groups. 2. In the name given to an organism according to binomial nomenclature, the first part is the genus name, and the second part is the specific epithet, or specific name, that identifies the species. 3. In modern classification systems, people could classify organisms not only on morphological and behavioral characteristics, but also included evolutionary relationships. 4. The giant panda is of the Animalia Kingdom, Chordata Phylum, Mammalia Class, Carnivora Order, Ursidae Family, Ailuropoda Genus and Melanoleuca Species. 5. Since the phyla includes multiple classes, there would be more biodiversity in the phylum than in the class. 6. Taxonomy involves classifying species, but systematics involves discovering new species and relationships. They incorporate information from taxonomy in their studies.

Castles :: essays research papers

Castles remind us of a time that was full of adventure and romance. Castles remind us of a time in history in which there was a lack of government and order. Although there was not mass confusion and anarchy, there was less order. Castles were the basis of feudalism. Castles can be seen as a manifestation of feudal society. Feudalism started with the rise of castles and ended with their end. The castle set the tone as the only homestead that nobility would live in during this time. Castles were influenced by and influenced many medieval cathedrals in Europe. Although castles served many purposes, their primary purpose was military. At that time, people were not protected by merely shutting and locking a regular wooden door. They needed the protection of castles and their knights. The lords and constables of castles needed serfs to work the land to make revenue in order to pay rent to the more important nobles. Given the following evidence, it is relatively obvious why castles and castle building played an instrumental role in the development of Western Europe. Castles are unique to a time in history known as medieval times. The word medieval in our times is an insult to anything as is the word feudal. Through the haze and ruins, one can imagine dungeons, chivalrous knights, and mighty Lords who ruled the land and protected the common peasant from barbarians and other invaders. The rise of castles marked the rise of feudalism. This was all started by the crusades. The majority of the knights and nobles went to liberate the holy land from the Muslims. The Crusades influenced castle builders back in Europe. Ideas were gathered from Muslim and Byzantine fortifications. Because of the lack of protection in Europe, a castle's strength needed to be increased because of the ever-present threat of a Muslim invasion. The end of Feudalism also marked the end of the middle ages and hence the end of the great castle era. Castles integrated the combination of residence and fortress. The first castle dates back to King Sargon II of Khorsabad in ancient Egypt. He erected a grand palace for himself to protect him and his subjects. The first recorded references to castles was the Edict of Pistes by Charles the Bald, king of the West Franks. "We will and expressly command that whoever at this time has made castles and fortifications and enclosures without our out permission shall have them demolished by the First of August" (Brown Architecture of Castles 13). Other castle laws were the Norman Institutions handed down by William the Conqueror after he took over England. One law says that no one shall

The Proverbs of Administration Herbert Simon Summary

Bekki Drewlo Simon, Herbert A. (1946). The Proverbs of Administration. In J. M. Shafrits & A. C. Hyde (Eds. ), Classics of public administration (6th ed. ) (pp. 124-137). Boston, MA: Thompson Wadsworth.ARTICLE SUMMARY:In Herbert Simon’s â€Å"The Proverbs of Administration† he begins outlining what he describes as the â€Å"accepted administrative principles† (p. 124). These principles state that administrative efficiency is increased by specialization of tasks among members of a group, unity of command, limiting the span of control at any one point in the hierarchy and by grouping the workers according to purpose, process, clientele and place.He then goes on to detail specific examples of how each principle could be tested in real world administrative situations for validity. Simon subjects each principle in turn to a very critical analysis beginning with specialization. He describes specialization as a â€Å"deceptive simplicity† and conveys that the fun damental problem with specialization is that it is ambiguous and he leads the reader to determine that the principle of specialization is â€Å"of not help at all† in deciding how to specialize to improve efficiency (p. 25) Turning to unity of command, Simon points out that this principle is simply â€Å"incompatible with the principle of specialization† (p. 125). If using the specialization principal, then the specialist would be looked upon for the decisions, not the person in command as the unity of command principal would require. Span of control contradictions are highlighted by Simon by describing how both an increase and a decrease in the span of control could increase or decrease efficiency in an organization. Lastly, Simon evaluates organization by purpose, process, clientele and place.In this principle, organization based on one aspect would be to the detriment of the remaining three. In each evaluation Simon provides either contradictory solutions that meet the requirement of the proverb in question or describes situations where adherence to the proverb could be inefficient if not irresponsible. Simon suggests rather that the â€Å"principles of administration† are merely â€Å"criteria for describing and diagnosing administrative situations†(p. 131). Finally, Simon relates that the proverbs of administration are in desperate need of empirical research and ultimately revision.He states that efficiency should be a definition of what is â€Å"good† or â€Å"correct† administrative behavior rather than a principle of administration (p. 133). He goes on to describe an approach for a more scientific analysis of administrative principles that would allow one to easily choose between equally viable yet opposing solutions to a single administrative problem. He provides the road map by which he believes this could be accomplished, yet admits that it may even be a â€Å"quixotic† undertaking (p. 136).The irony of this final contradiction is not lost on this reader.KEY POINTS:The accepted administrative principles or proverbs are inherently flawed.These principles are still of value by using them as â€Å"criteria for describing and diagnosing administrative situations†(pg 131).SpecializationUnity of CommandSpan of ControlOrganization by purpose, Process, Clientele, PlaceThe accepted administrative principles or proverbs are in desperate need of empirical research and ultimately revision.RELEVENCE:This article is relevant to students and practitioners of administration because it highlights the ongoing struggle with administrative theory. Simons highlights the contradictions inherent with the â€Å"accepted administrative principles† but leads the reader to understand that these principles are useful as tools in the practice of administration (p. 124). After evaluation of specialization, unity of command, span of control and organization by purpose, process, clientele and pla ce, administrators can rely on experience to determine the appropriate behavior.

Human Resource Development and Workers Commitment in Nigeria

INTRODUCTION The focus of this paper is to examine the role of human resource development and workers commitment in organization in particular and in Nigeria as a whole. For the purpose of this study, the concept of human resource development and manpower development will be used interchangeably. In any organization, it is the workforce who is considered important assets for the achievement of organizational goals. Every industry desires to maximize its human resources to see that the best output is achieved.Therefore, human resource development policies are closely associated to that aspect of human resource management that is concerned with investing in people and developing the organization’s human capital. Keep (1989) in his view say: one of the primary objectives of human resource management is the creation of condition whereby the latent potential of employees will be realized and their commitment to the causes of the organization secured.This latent potential is taken t o include, not only the capacity to acquire and utilize new skills and knowledge but also a hitherto untapped wealth of ideas about how the organization’s operations might be better ordered. The issue for employers goes beyond the need to upgrade the skills of the current workforce. It is also necessary to equip future entrants to the workforce with the requisite education which make them ‘trainable’ for emerging and constantly changing skills requirement.It is generally believed that if overall human conditions are to improve, there must be increasing emphasis on human resources development. Appropriately, such development provides for increase in productivity, enhance competitiveness and support economic growth. The importance of human resources development is obvious when one considered that in any economic activity, it is the human element that commands, direct, organizes, controls and maximizes. CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATION Training and development remains a maj or component of human resource development.By definition, human resource (HR) is the manpower, employee or worker required by an organization; be it public or private to enable it achieves its predetermined objectives. That is, the purpose for which it is set up. It could mean the entire human resource (skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled) available within the country. Human resource development or otherwise manpower development is a continuous process of impacting new information, skills, attitude and ideas to employees dictated by the requirement of job change. It is a means of overcoming employee obsolescence through education and training.In other words, HR-development is a means by which employees are kept current on their official duties, this means in effect that it is the process of preparing the total quantitative and qualitative human asset in a nation or organization so that they can move with the nation or organizations as they develop, change and grow. Human resources d evelopment is a combination of training and education that ensure the continual improvement and growth of both the individual and the organization. Adam Smith stated that, â€Å"the capacities of individuals depended on their access to education†.In economic term, it could be describe as the accumulation of human capital and its effective investment in the development of a nation’s economy. In political term, manpower or HR development prepares people for adult participation in political process particularly as a citizen in democratic country. On the whole, HRD is the process of planning and controlling the way in which a person’s performance and potentials are developed by training and educational development programmes. WORKERS COMMITMENT A wide variety of definitions and measure of workers commitment exist.Beckeri, Randal, and Riegel (1995) defined the term in a three dimensions: 1. a strong desire to remain a member of a particular organization; 2. a willing ness to exert high levels of efforts on behalf of the organization; 3. a define belief in and acceptability of the values and goals of the organization. To Northcraft and Neale (1996), commitment is an attitude reflecting an employee's loyalty to the organization, and an ongoing process through which organization members express their concern for the organization and its continued success and well being.Organizational commitment is determined by a number of factors, including personal factors (e. g. , age, tenure in the organization, disposition, internal or external control attributions); organizational factors (job design and the leadership style of one's supervisor); non-organizational factors (availability of alternatives). All these things affect subsequent commitment (Nortcraft and Neale, 1996). Mowday, Porter, and Steer (1982) see commitment as attachment and loyalty. These authors describe three components of commitment: ? an identification with the goals and values of the o rganization ?A desire to belong to the organization. ?A willingness to display effort on behalf of the organization. A similar definition of commitment emphasizes the importance of behaviour in creating it. Salancik (1977) conceives commitment as a state of being in which an individual becomes bound by his actions and it is these actions that sustain his activities and involvement. From this definition, it can be inferred that three features of behavior are important in binding individuals to act: visibility of acts, the extent to which the outcomes are irrevocable; and the degree to which the person undertakes the action voluntarily.To Salancik therefore, commitment can be increased and harnessed to obtain support for the organizational ends and interests through such things as participation in decision-making. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AND WORKERS COMMITMENT IN NIGERIA The most important strategy for productivity improvement is based on the fact that huma n productivity, both high and low is determined by the attitudes of all those who work in the enterprise. Thus, to improve labour commitment, it is necessary to change attitude towards positive drive.These changes develop positive attitudes and an organizational culture which will be favourable towards productivity improvement as well as technological changes. To improve productivity, it is therefore necessary to manage change; this means motivating, inducing and generating change. Ashton and Felstead (1995) regard the investment by an organisation in the skills of employees as a ‘litmus test’ for a change in the way they are manages. First, the replacement of the words ‘training cost’ with investment responses to the outcomes of HRD where the continuation of viewing training s a short-term cost has persistently acted as a powerful break of many training strategies. Having defined human resource development as the study and practice of increasing the learni ng capacity of individuals, groups, collectives, and organizations through the development and application of learning-based interventions for the purpose of optimizing human and organizational growth and effectiveness, it is indicated that formal training enhances employees’ organizational commitment. Sharma 1989 had also found a correlation between training and organizational commitment.Organizations that offer employees a relative high degree of development opportunities and internal career possibilities were also found to have opportunities has also been reported to have a positive effect on perceived rationalism of the employment relation, which is also said to have accounted for higher levels of commitment and job satisfaction. In organizations that offer training opportunities, employee commitment and citizenship behaviour are found to be higher than in organizations that do not offer the same.Studies has also shown that violation of perceived training obligations resu lt in reduced organizational commitment and increased intentions to leave the organization. Tannenbaum et al. (1991) found that naval recruits who participated in an 8-week training held higher levels of affective commitment than before the training. EQUITY THEORY The theory was propounded by Adam Staley John in 1963 and this theory calls for a fair balance to be struck between an employee’s input (hard work, skill level, tolerance, enthusiasm etc. ) and employee’s output (salary, benefits, recognition etc).According to the theory, finding this fair balance serves to ensure a strong and productive relationship achieved with the employee, with the overall result being contended, motivated employees. Adam’s Equity Theory acknowledges that subtle and variable factors affect an employee assessment and perception of their relationship with their work and their employer. The theory is built on the belief that employees become de-motivated, both in relation to their jo b and their employer if they feel as though their inputs are greater than the output.This theory also compares the input and output between different workers at different levels. Bringing this theory to the level of work commitment in Nigeria, it will be noted that workers are highly de-motivated because of the inequality between their various input and their output. For instance, comparing the input of a University Professor with that of a Senator and relating it to their output, this will highly de-motivate professor to work. And these are some of the problem affecting workers commitment in Nigeria.HUMAN CAPITAL THEORY Human Capital theory was proposed by Schultz (1961) and developed extensively by Becker (1964). According to the theory, it suggests that education or training raises the productivity of workers by imparting useful knowledge and skills, hence raising workers’ future income by increasing their lifetime earnings (Becker, 1994). It postulates that expenditure on training and education is costly, and should be considered an investment since it is undertaken with a view to increasing personal incomes.The human capital approach is often used to explain occupational wage differentials. Human capital can be viewed in general terms, such as the ability to read and write, or in specific terms, such as the acquisition of a particular skill with a limited industrial application. In his view, human capital is similar to â€Å"physical means of production†, e. g. , factories and machines: one can invest in human capital (via education, training, medical treatment) and one's outputs depend partly on the rate of return on the human capital one owns.Thus, human capital is a means of production, into which additional investment yields additional output. Human capital is substitutable, but not transferable like land, labor, or fixed capital. This suggest that for human resource development to be effective and for workers to be more committed to the organization, the organizations concerned need to be more involved in the training and re-training of its workforce. THE HUMAN CAPITAL MODELThe human capital model suggests that an individual's decision to invest in training is based upon an examination of the net present value of the costs and benefits of such an investment. Individuals are assumed to invest in training during an initial period and receive returns to the investment in subsequent periods. Workers pay for training by receiving a wage which is lower than what could be received elsewhere while being trained. Since training is thought to make workers more productive, workers collect the returns from their investment in later periods through higher marginal roducts and higher wages. Human capital models usually decompose training into specific training, which increases productivity in only one firm, and general training, which increases productivity in more than one firm. Purely general training is financed by workers, and the workers receive all of the returns to this training. In contrast, employees and employers will share in the costs and returns of specific training. Despite these differences between general and specific training, the model predicts that both forms of training lower the starting wage and increase wage growth.THE NIGERIAN CONTEXT Human resource development in Nigeria has come a long way, but the process of actual resource development has been very gradual. Nigerian attempt at human resources development in particular cannot be separated from the country’s post-colonial attempt at accelerated education and industrialization. In a broader sense, every post colonial government’s investment in education has been for the purpose of providing the manpower which the nation needs in it private and public sectors.This led to the establishment of three (3) Universities by the three regional governments of West, East, and the North (University of Ibadan which is the first) and the establishment of University of Lagos by the federal government all within the first decade of post independence Nigeria. As a result of the country’s quest for technological development, polytechnics and universities of technology as stream in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Provision of universities and polytechnics education were meant to provide the national economy with the manpower it needs to develop and expand.The emphasis on formal and higher education as a basis of national human resource development was quite apparent in all the national development plans of post independence Nigeria. Gradually, the nation’s economic planners shifted attention to intervention in the areas of training and manpower development. In fairness to our earlier economic planners, Onasanya (2005) believes that â€Å"without education, there can be no training and without the two, there can be no development†.Government’s attempt at strengthening training and development in the national economy led to the establishment of the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) in 1971; Administrative and Staff Training College of Nigeria (ASCON) in 1973; and Centre for Management Development (CMD) in 1976. The idea behind the three establishments is the provision of consultancy on training needs all enterprise, training higher level manpower staff, and conducting research into problems of manpower and administration in public and private sectors.Onasanya (2005) also believe government’s intervention as stated above must be appreciated in the Nigeria context because, â€Å"until recently, and probably until the intervention of the government (training was one of the ill-managed and haphazardly handled areas of modern enterprises. Training and development was seen as a waste of a workers labour hours (to his employer) and a way of denying the employer the service of the employee. The above analysis is not to take away the concerted effort in the public and private sectors towards training and human resource development.Public sector workers have many structured training programmes and many government have a ministry of establishment and training, as well as designated training centres. In the private sector, some notable sectors such as banking, telecommunications, and manufacturing industries are more proficient in training today than in the past. The efficiency of manpower training and new technology has helped these sectors in terms of better service delivery. But, are workers really committed in Nigeria?Workers’ commitment or otherwise in Nigeria is more than whether there human capacity is developed because there are many factors affecting workers motivation and commitment in Nigeria. The global economic meltdown has meant less security for workers in Nigeria and throughout the world. Even good workers do lose their jobs at these times, hence morale is generally low. Other factors such as culture, god-fatherism, ICT and other mod ern technologies have impacted negatively on workers morale and productivity in Nigeria. The gradual decimation of the power of labour unions have also not helped matter.TOOLS/METHOD FOR MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT IN ORGANIZATIONS The tools and methods for manpower development in organizations differs, and it is largely determined by the objectives of organizations, the idiosyncrasy of management staff or the chief executive, the organizational policy, as well as the organizational environment to mention a few. Thus, it is a common feature to see methods for manpower development varying from one organization to the other, just as a given organization can be tailored at adopting different methods at different times or a combination of techniques t the same time. However, some methods for manpower development are stated below: 1. Orientation: This method of manpower development could be said to be an integral part of the recruitment exercise in that once an employee has been found appointab le, it is expected that such an employee need to be positively oriented in line with the vision and aspiration of the organization for effective discharge of function. And since employee function in an organization is basically affected by his perception of the organization vis-a-vis the rules and principles that exist in the organization.It therefore follow that an employee undergoes formal and informal orientation in a place of work. While the formal orientation focuses on job specification and occupational demands placed on the employee, the informal orientation involve the social interaction that take place in the place of work which could either boost productivity or be detrimental to it (Koontz et al. 1980). Orientation therefore, as a method of manpower development is quite indispensable because it helps in boosting the productivity of workers which is needed for competing in the global market of the 21st century. . On the Job Method of Manpower Development: This method is ba sically different from the orientation method in that while orientation is at the point of entry into the organization or a new assignment; on the job method is a process through which knowledge and experience are acquired over a period of time either formally or informally. This process involve the following: (a)Coaching: This is a method of on the job training and development in which a young employee is attached to a senior employee with the purpose of acquiring knowledge and experience needed for the performance of tasks. Yalokwu, 2000). (b) Job Rotation: This method either involve the movement of an employee from one official assignment or department to the other, in order for the employee to be acquainted with the different aspects of the work process or through job enlargement – that is, given additional responsibility to an employee who has been uplifted as a result of the acquisition of additional skill or knowledge (Yalokwu, 2000; Lawal, 2006). (c) in House Training : This involve a formal method of on the job training n which skills and knowledge are acquired by employees through internally organized seminars and workshops geared toward updating the workers with new techniques or skills associated with the performance of their jobs. (Lawal, 2006). (d) In Service Training: These methods involve training outside the organization or workplace in higher institution of learning or vocational centres under the sponsorship of the organization or on terms that may be agreed upon between the organization and the worker (Lawal, 2006). 3.Committee/Work Group Method: This method entails manpower development through the involvement of employees in meetings, committees and work group discussion geared towards injecting inputs in form of decision making as regard solving organizational problem. This method is quite indispensable, especially in the aspect of training employees for managerial functions or heading organizational units. 4. Vestibule Training Met hod: This is a method of manpower development through the acquisition of skills in a related working environment (Nongo, 2005).Under this method the trainee practices his skill with identical equipment that he uses or he is expected to use in his actual place of work. This method is most suitable for sensitive operations where maximal perfection is expected. The purpose is therefore to enable perfection at work place. 5. Apprenticeship Method: This method of manpower development involve the acquisition of skill through extensive practice for over a period of time by the trainee. This type of manpower development device could either be formal or informal.In the informal environments the trainee is attached to the trainer, and he/she is expected to pay for an agreed period of apprenticeship (Nongo, 2005). In the formal environment on the other hand, an employee of an organization could be placed under apprenticeship in the organization with pay. THE RELEVANCE OF MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT I N NIGERIA 1. Economic Development: The relevance of manpower development in Nigeria could be situated vis-a-vis economic development. This is because manpower development captures the actual meaning of development in that it is people centered (World Bank 1991; Grawboski and Shields 1996).In addition, it involves the building of capacity and harnessing the State’s human resource which constitute a sine-qua-non for development. The above advantage was vividly conceptualized by Harbison (1973) when he stated that: Human resources constitute the ultimate basis for wealth of nations, capital and natural resources are passive factors of production; human beings are the active agents who accumulate capital, exploit natural resources, build social, economic and political organizations, and carry forward national development.Clearly a country which is unable to develop the skills and knowledge of its people and to utilize them effectively in the national economy will be unable to dev elop anything else. 2. Political Stability: There is no doubt that a country which fails to adequately develop her manpower would be doing so at the expense of her socio-economic and political stability.In the aspect of political stability, Omodia (2004) stressed the dysfunctional use of the nation’s human resource among the youths in propelling political instability when he stated that: †¦there has been situations in which the Nigerian youth especially, those of poor family background were used as tools for disrupting the political democratic system through rigging, thuggery and ethnic conflicts. These factors of rigging, thuggery in addition to economic mismanagement, personal ambition or selfishness among others, were the factors that terminated the First and Second Republic.Thus, manpower development could help the youths in the development of self and in improving the quality of their political participation. 3. Poverty Alleviation: It has been argued that effective poverty alleviation scheme must involve the development and utilization of local resource including human for solving local problems (Robb, 2000; Omodia, 2005). Thus, manpower development is central to solving the present problem of poverty in Nigeria. CHALLENGES FACING MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA 1.Colonial Experience: There have been several arguments regarding the distortions in manpower development of national growth in Nigeria as a result of colonialism which was fashioned towards economic exploitation (Ekpo, 1989; Ake, 2001; Dauda, 2003). It could be recalled that the advent of colonialism led to the integration of the Nigerian economy into the World Capitalist System thereby placing minimum premium on labour when compared to other factors of production. This poor performance of indigenous labour by the colonial government no doubt has persisted in the post-colonial Nigerian State.As a result, this problem account for the lack of adequate attention given to labour as a cr itical part of the production process in Nigeria. 2. Poor Political Leadership: Closely related to the problem of colonial experience as a problem of manpower development in Nigeria is poor political leadership which is further deepening the problem of manpower development in Nigeria. This factor has manifested itself in poor funding of education over the years (Baikie, 2002), disparity or class in manpower development between children of the rich and the poor (Omodia, 2006). 3.Poor Manpower Planning: This problem is associated with the poor data base that is needed for manpower planning in Nigeria both in the rural and urban centers. This problem no doubt constitutes a major hindrance on effective manpower development in Nigeria (Baikie, 2002; Oku 2003). 4. Poor Funding: Nigeria’s democracy has enhanced the practice of human resource development, determining the quota of expatriates it permits. Nigeria’s economy allows the importation of new technology to enhance huma n resource development, but training is still a bit slow, thus employment of expatriates to handle such is still encouraged.In Nigeria there is application of new management techniques and skills used in the running of organizations. All aimed at running cost effective system. 5. The socio-cultural diversity of Nigeria has influenced the human resource management practices in Nigeria. Nigeria is characterized by over reliance on culture, language, religion, gender and educational qualifications as a basis for determining who get employed and who need to be trained and re-trained. What this means is that, the opportunity for an average Nigeria to get employed is a factor of the aforementioned cases. CONCLUSIONThis paper have been able to situate or relate what could be referred to as manpower underdevelopment to socio-economic and political problems in Nigeria by looking at such factors as poverty, political instability and economic underdevelopment. From this background, it is there fore important to conclude that human resource development as a concept and method should be able to take its rightful place as a tool for development in Nigeria through the recognition of the fact that it is the most active and indispensable in the process of production even in the global age of the 21st century.RECOMMENDATION FOR EFFECTIVE MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA The options recommended for effective manpower development in Nigeria could be viewed from two basic perspectives: 1. The option of an enhanced regulatory capability on the part of government for effective reinforcement of manpower policies. This is quite indispensable based on the need to ensure quality manpower development irrespective of sex, class, ethnic affiliation to mention a few.This point could best be appreciated considering the liberal nature of most government policies which tend to snowball into elitist benefit in terms of policy outcome. 2. The need for government to be persuasive in making organiza tions embraces well designed policies at improving the development of manpower in Nigeria. This could be done both internally and externally. Internally, organizations should be made to see reasons why a careful manpower development plan should form part of their plans and objectives for the financial year.As a matter of fact, the success of organizations should not only be measured in terms of the magnitude of profit through the adoption of outdated personnel administration technique, but, basically on the contribution of the organization in enlarging the confidence of its workers through manpower development. The external factor involves the contribution of organization to the development of manpower through financial support meant to boost adult education, vocational education, and specialized research institutes to mention a few. REFERENCES Ake, C. (2001): Democracy and Development in Africa. Ibadan: Spectrum BooksLimited. Baikie, A. (2002): Recurrent Issues in Nigeria Education . Zaria: Tamaza Publishing Company. Becker, G. S. (1964): Human capital. New York: Columbia University Press. Dauda, S. (2003): The Crisis of Development in Africa: The Democratic Imperatives. J Dev Soc, Ekpo, A. H. (1989): Manpower Development in Nigeria. In: SC Ogbuagu (Ed. ): Strategy For National Development In Nigeria. Calabar: University of Calabar Press. FGN (1998): National Policy on Education. Lagos: Federal Government Press. Grabowski, R. , Shields, M. (1996): Development Economics. USA: Blackwell Publishers Incorporation.Harbison, F. (1973): Human Resources as the Wealth of Nations. New York: Oxford University Press. Koontz, H; O’Donnel. C; Weihrich, H. (1980): Management. Japan: McGraw Hill Publishing Company. Lawal, M. M. (2006): Manpower Management: A Hand Book for Personnel Managers and Students of Administration. Abuja: Roots Books and Journals Nigeria Limited. Nongo, S. (2005): Fundamental of Management, Makurdi: Aboki Publishing Company. Oku, O. (2003): The Universal Basic Education (UBE) Programme: Issues and Problems of Policy Implementation. J Nig Langs Cul, Omeje,J. O. (2006): Developmental Psychology.Nnike Publishing Press, Enugu. Omodia, S. (2004): The Family as a Vehicle for Sustainable Democracy in Nigeria. J Fam Dev. Omodia, S. (2005): Poverty Alleviation in a Deregulated Economy. Challenges and Prospects For Sustainable Democracy in Nigeria. J Adm. Omodia, S. (2006): The Liberal and Elitist Perception of Public Policies in Nigeria: A Focus on the National Policy on Women and Education in the Nigerian Fourth Republic. Acad For Onasanya, S. A. B. (2005):Effective Personnel Management and Industrial Relation. Centre for Management Development, Lagos. Robb, C. M. (2002): Can the Poor Influence Policy?USA: World Bank. Sharma, B. R. (1989): A Study of the Relationship of Organizational Climate with Organisational; Commitment and Psychological Well being, PhD Thesis, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla. Tannenbaum, S. L; Mathieu, J. E; Salas, E. & Cannon-Bowers, J. A. (1991): Meeting Trainees' Expectations: The Influence of Training Fulfillment on the Development of Commitment, Self-eficacy, and Motivation. The Journal of Applied Psychology. World Bank (1991): World Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press. Yalokwu, P. O. (2000): Management: Concept and Techniques . Lagos: Peak Publishers.

China The next hegemonic power

China The next hegemonic power Introduction Global hegemony is a term mainly used to refer to a state in world affairs in which one nation exercises authority over the others because of a concentration of various powers in the former (Atasoy, 2009). The take-over of global dominance by the United States from Britain after the end of the World War I has revealed that there is one main reason as to why a country can cede supremacy over other nations. This reason is mainly overspending by the nations in power; a phenomenon sometimes known as imperial overstretch.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on China: The next hegemonic power? specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The United States has for a while now been the single most powerful nation in the world. However, as time progresses, other contenders are gradually emerging for the same title with China leading the pack. This paper seeks to analyze the strengths that China has which could well be used to place it in a position of global politico-economic supremacy as well as point out the weaknesses that are pulling back the country in this regard. Aside from this, a brief detailing of an International Relations theoretical framework that can be used to explain China’s ascent into global supremacy shall be provided. China’s Strengths The Chinese economy has been confirmed to have grown ten-fold in the last thirty years and that in the past decade its gross domestic product per capita has doubled. Between 50 and 60 percent of the country’s GDP is taken by the nation’s manufacturing sector and one notable example of this is the steel industry (Vogelmann, 2008). Between 1995 and 2005, China’s production of steel had grown by over 290 tones; a figure which translates to a yearly growth of 39%. Such figures genuinely show that China is well on its way to a complete industrial overhaul. However, for China to rise to the level of making a mark as far as global hegemony is concerned, the impact of its growth has to be substantially appreciated by other nations across the globe. This growth will only make an impact if it is sustainable without sparking conflict between China and other superpowers. China commands a great portion of the world marketplace meaning that it has a substantial say in most monetary issues (Vogelmann, 2008). For instance China recently declined to let its currency appreciate claiming that it wanted to keep its trade balance away from world knowledge. This clearly illustrates that China is not willing to have other nations influence the decisions it makes on financial policies. As the country grows wealthier and in a sense becoming a key player in global economics and politics, its leaders will have to find ways of fostering peaceful relations with other nations, an aspect that will force them to downplay their nationalistic sentiments (Vogelmann, 2008).Advertising Looking for research paper on inter national relations? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Another factor that could contribute to China upsetting the United States from global dominance is the sheer size of its military capabilities (Scobell, 2007). China is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and it therefore has unchallenged power over any issues that go through the organization’s chamber (Scobell, 2007). The country is also known to invest heavily in its military with its budget for this increasing by 15% last year. IR theoretical framework One theoretical framework of international relations that can be used to explain the concept of hegemonic power is Neorealism sometimes known as structured realism (May, Rosecrance and Steiner, 2010). This is theory was fronted by Kenneth Waltz and it is basically an advancement to ideas engulfed in traditional realism schools of thought. This theory holds it that in order to explain how a stat e conducts itself, the structure of the society in which particular states operate must be taken into account. According to this framework, structure is explained in two basic descriptions. The first is anarchy which is organization of global political and economic systems in alignment with one supreme power (May, Rosecrance and Steiner, 2010). The second is the emphasis on the military supremacy of nations that command worldwide authority in classifying the powers of countries as opposed to a combination of all state strengths. This theoretical framework can definitely be used to explain China’s rise in the 21st century particularly because it holds that for a country to grow to such a position that it commands great authority in the world it must have a strong military base and even greater financial supremacy, aspects which are well present in China. China’s weaknesses The greatest issue at the moment that would make China not get to the point of global dominance th at it desires is that the country is basically viewed as a security risk (Vogelmann, 2008). It is generally acceptable that as a country’s economic supremacy grows, so does its tendency to want to meddle into the affairs of other nations by trying to maintain order world wide. Chinese leaders are known to be prone to surrendering to nationalistic interests and if this submission is to occur with the country as the hegemonic leader, it could spark conflict, the size of the last world war. As a matter of fact China has a below par record when it comes to the issue of human rights and the country’s oppressive policies on the media rights have contributed to the country fairing badly in this issue (Scobell, 2007). Methodology The research will be based on secondary data collection. Data will be extracted from various journals, articles and books. The criteria of selection for the literature will be the relevance to the research topic as well as the year of publication. Bot h public and private libraries as well as online libraries will be visited in order to access the data.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on China: The next hegemonic power? specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This research will be partly evidence based and partly founded on professional research by professionals in the field. Various articles will be studied in order to provide background information which will essentially give credibility to the final essay. The possibility of China rising to global hegemony cannot be effectively analysed without obtaining information on the various strengths and spheres of influence of the country as far as world issues are concerned. These strengths have to be compared with those of the United States which currently exercises global supremacy and Britain, from which the United States took over. This will definitely make for some interesting research and in as much most of the i nformation will only be used for reference purposes, it will effectively came round to form the back-born of the paper. Information from the books will serve to provide explanation as regards the internal machinations of global hegemonies. This will be very crucial information that will make the research report appeal to both professionals and the general public. For the latter, it may require that some of the information obtained from the books and other publications be broken down into simple language and at the same time illustrations drawn from the past and present manifestations of single-nation global dominance. Empirical data will be collected from recent studies with numbers and figures used to show the costs and economical impact of a Chinese global hegemony and how it could effectively be used to serve as a guide for other nations that would like to rise to such levels of influence. Like with any other professional field of study, International Relations researches have to be conducted in such a way that the offer credibility to the practitioner. In such a scientific field, the strength lies in the figures and particularly the numbers obtained from real life scenarios to support collected evidence. With this knowledge in mind, effort will be made to obtain relevant information to the particular topic in question and this will be accompanied by proper citation. Reasons for Selecting the Above Methodology For any professional topic, chances are that extensive research has been carried out by professionals in the field before. Consequently, in order to establish the backbone of a given research project, it is only necessary that extensive review of literature be carried before identifying seeking first hand information from the field. The latter, i.e. information collected from the field is also necessary since it helps give professional credibility to the project. Combining results from both sources would serve to foster their symbiotic relationship wi th one offering background information and the other presenting up-to-date information on the topic.Advertising Looking for research paper on international relations? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Reference List Atasoy, Y. (2009). Hegemonic transitions, the state and crisis in neoliberal capitalism. United Kingdom: Taylor Francis. May, E.R., Rosecrance, R. Steiner, Z. (2010). History and Neorealism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scobell, A. (2007). Chinas use of military force: beyond the Great Wall and the Long  March. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vogelmann, J. (2008). The ascent of China as a new superpower and the relationship  with the hegemonic United States: Rough power politics or peaceful economic cooperation? Munich: GRIN Verlag.