An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge Essay

An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge - Essay Example Plato invites us to imagine a group of life-long inhabitants of a prison-cave with no knowledge what so ever of the outside world. When shadows appear on the walls of the cave the inhabitants take them to be real entities without knowing that the shadows are actually those posed by the humans outside. This explanation of Plato directs towards the fact that â€Å"most of us live in ignorance most of the time. The worst of this situation is that we do not even know we are ignorant†. (Mitchell, 2008) The truth that we perceive, therefore, seems to be subjective to our experience and conditioning.The emotional states of our inner being determine the way we see the outside world. Great poetry works are inclined to this particular phenomenology. Poet Matthew Arnold, once, sitting over the edge of Dover Beach claimed the â€Å"grating roar† of the pebbles that the sea flung back and forth over the beach to have brought the â€Å"eternal note of sadness in†(stanza 1). Th e withdrawing of the sea from the coast only reminds him of the ignorance of people and their diminishing faith in god. It is the melancholic and sad state of the poet’s mind that makes him behold the sea also as sad. For a sad person, even a bright sunny green day will appear to be boring while for a joyous person, even a rainy, cloudy or a gloomy day might appear to be mirthful! Differences occur among individuals on the way we emotionally react to certain situations. Temper-oriented people do not need much of a reason to go haywire in anger while for those spiritually and morally inclined individuals, even the most aggravating circumstances might be won over by forgiveness. How we take things, therefore, is a matter of our subjective emotional state. The reason that we claim for any happening is purely determined by the kind of mindset we have been brought up with.

Taxation, Pensions, and the Issues Associated the Social Security Research Paper

Taxation, Pensions, and the Issues Associated the Social Security Trust Fund - Research Paper Example The fact of the matter is that the Social Security Trust Fund is comprised of two separate funds. The first of these is of course the OASI Trust Fund (Old Age and Survivors Insurance Fund); whereas the second is that of the DI Fund (Disability Fund) (Shelton, 2008). Whereas the first fund is the one that is of course the largest and is most referenced within the media and concerns over budgeting etc, the second one is lesser known and is primarily responsible for providing payments to those individuals who had been working at one point but due to injury or illness are no longer capable of performing work. Combined, both programs owe the American people approximately 2.93 trillion dollars as of the end of 2011 (Papps, 2012). The number in and of itself is but a snapshot of current obligations and as such cannot be viewed as a means of seeking to understand the level to which the program will be able to handle changes in economics or the retirement of subsequent generations. The unfortunate fact of the situation is that the social security program itself is suffering from what many have called an eventual and sustained death. Due to the fact that the government has mismanaged the situation with Social Security for such a longer period of time, short-sightedly borrowing from it at every available instance, the level to which the program can sustain itself and continue to cover the liabilities that it necessarily engenders is not projected to take place long after the year 2030 (Quirk, 2003).