The Marketing Mix for Pets.com Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Marketing Mix for Pets.com - Case Study Example Diversity of product was what differentiated the site from other competitors, both online and bricks-and-mortar, thus attracting more potential target segments. During the launch and growth period of Pets.com, product was one of the primary selling points along the marketing mix. Place was emphasized for convenience, providing new opportunities for consumers to get pet products without having to visit a bricks-and-mortar competitor. Place was important in the late 1990s as the Internet was just beginning to become part of consumer lifestyle and thus represented innovation in sales strategy. Furthermore, price was an important part of the marketing mix. This was reflected in the company’s guarantees for a flat rate shipping fee of $4.95 regardless of the volume and weight of the products being delivered. Sales and discounting incentives that provided further value also emphasized the company’s focus on pricing as a differentiation tool. Finally, Pets.com also utilized pr omotion effectively, gaining brand exposure through cross-promotional strategies with The Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. A very large expenditure to be included in the 2000 Super Bowl ad gave the company considerable promotional exposure and gained more consumer interest in the process. Analysis of Differentiation Strategy Diversity of product variety served to differentiate from other pet-related competition, illustrating that the business wanted to gain market attention and assist many different target segments. However, there were difficulties with this strategy as the company did not maintain the distribution and warehousing capacity needed to support this differentiation tactic. Further, holding costs of high volume inventories must be considered that include lighting, labor, and taxation that can significantly raise operating costs (Heizer and Render 174). Sales and discounting incentives also differentiated the business from competition. The advantage of this is that pr ice-sensitive consumers are more attracted to the business model over competition. When offering a flat rate guaranteed shipping price, this also had advantages related to price. Furthermore, using expert consultations from experts in the pet field, such as breeders and scientists, gave the business more credibility and expressed perceptions of competence to many target segments. Some of the differentiation strategies were implemented successfully, including having expert information available to pet owners that gave the business a better market position under quality. However, discounting and high volume merchandise selection offerings conflicted the process of avoiding losses associated with operational budget. If the business had re-examined its low flat rate shipping policy and redetermined its distribution network strategy, it is likely the cost of goods sold would not have been so high and attracted more investor confidence and interest in common stock purchasing. The Product- Market Growth Matrix Analysis Adding horse products to the business model was a diversification strategy, branching into untapped or new markets with a new line of relevant products (Boone and Kurtz 218). The result of this strategy along the product-market growth matrix proposed by Ansoff is having presence in a new market where the business had not previously been devoted. The company’s diversification strategy, however, was not efficient, especially since the business did not have the capacity to sustain such high volume inventories and inventory holding costs. Horse ownership is a niche market and most consumers procure their products from local organizations and, because of this, it is not likely that Pets.com would have gained much revenue growth in an effort to lure horse enthusiasts to buy

Descriptive Essay Essay Example for Free

Descriptive Essay Essay There are few moments in a person’s life in which they can take a step back from their conscious minds and realize a change in â€Å"direction† or change of â€Å"purpose† within their paths. Most of life seems like a continuous flow of a journey, an ever speeding ride that starts and finishes as the sun’s journey through our day light. We are, when you get down to the core of it, simply a combination of our past experiences and memories. But some of us, few and far between, have experienced a brief moment in history in which we felt the tides of our own oceans turning. The moment is brief. The moment is sometimes small. Yet the moment is forever fleeting. Like a cool breeze that suddenly crosses over the hot sands of our minds, we suddenly are swept up from something that finally brings a new sense of understanding into our lives – ultimately changing us forever. This moment came for me when I was rather quite young. In fact, I was in the middle of my third year of elementary school. Before we go any further down this recollection trip of ours, I will have you know a little about my past. In my younger days, I had been branded as what you may refer to as a â€Å"liar†, but the reality wasn’t found in the sense of that word. Instead of â€Å"lying† in modems of deceit, I simply and honestly believed with all my being that if something was conceived within my thoughts and plopped out of my mouth that it was systematically true. It probably sounds absurd, simply believing in something and taking it as true when there was no evidence behind its conception other than my frivolous thoughts. But that’s how it was, or so I thought, in my world of being. In fact, I vividly remember telling my brother one day that I was actually not his sister, rather a lost princess in need of finding her way home. Where from the cosmos did that idea originate from? Well, since I can’t even tell you, God would be the only one to know. With the daisy chain I labored at making for hours around resting atop my curly locks and birds singing every which way I turned, I was a princess. Nothing that â€Å"reality† presented to me was truer than that. And so time went on. I was a royal princess. I did not eat the last cookie. I had magical powers. Just no one else knew about it yet. Imagination was the all-powerful and ruling force of my world – the seams of reality and dream forever muddled and intertwined. It was like I had not really been born yet, like I was not actually alive, rather just stuck in purgatory of pre-life and had not yet taken the steps into the real universe yet. And then came  third grade. It was Mrs. Alley’s class she was a rather â€Å"persnickety† as she liked to call it lady who absolutely wouldn’t let anyone get away with anything. She was nice though, I could tell she had a warm heart and I liked her better than my last teacher. All the other kids had done and finished their detailed map of the California state, all colorful and bright from crayons wax. But then there was me – perfectionist who would draw four pencil etchings and then erase five. Mrs. Alley announced that everyone that was done could go outside and begin a game of â€Å"kick ball†, which was the absolutely best part of any school day. I was put in between a rock and a hard place. As everyone else started fileling out of the room, a silence began to pervade the place. Eventually I was alone, sitting in a desk with a half lightly drawn potion of California on my paper. Eventually I just put my pencil down and started to look around the class room. It’s truly amazing how the absence of sound and souls can change a place. As the clock ticked onwards, my mind came to recollect the perfectly printed version of the California map that was resting in the pages of my history section of my binder. One envisioned, there was no turning back. I ran to the other side of the class room and tore my binder from the top shelf, turned the history tab and found my booty. It didn’t take long, the copying of the whole thing and the end product was rather magnificent if I have the right to admit so myself. By the time I was finished though I could hear little third grader feet beginning to scuff on the outside stairs. With the zip of a zipper and a scurry across the room, all proof of the occurrence had been erased†¦ or so it appeared. When everyone had come back in, Mrs. Alley announced that there would be a contest for whoevers map looked the nicest. As she walked around she gave nods and smiles to the other children, but when she came to peer over my shoulder she stopped. With perfect lines and strait edges my map probably seemed like a masterpiece of Van Gogh’s proportions compared to everyone else’s. It all happened rather quickly. The asking, the removing of the binder from the book shelf, the  hol ding of the map up to the window against the original, but all throughout this process a thought formed from within my head and there was no point of return: I had not traced it. I had done it all by myself with my own hands. For all I could have known in that moment I could have been outside the whole time with the rest of my class, but the history of the past hour was completely erased from my mind. It seems odd really, even for me to talk about the thought that I gave myself subject to and belief in, as if almost I am only recalling memories from another world or a half remembered dream. All I can remember from that moment is that from the whole moment is my whole body and being screaming â€Å"No† from every angle, every corner of the depths of my being. But she did not give in, she did not even falter. Eventually we sat alone in her room, fists clenched, face red, and eyes wet and still neither giving in. And then she turned to me and said â€Å"Ok Courtney† with the most unsatisfactory unbelieving persona that I have ever have witnessed in my life. As the car wised by the pine and cedar trees I could still feel the heat of anger come off my face. Why didn’t she believe me? My mom crying from the driver’s seat tried to lecture and yell sense into me. She was a good mom, is and always will be. Neither she nor my father had ever taught me to â€Å"lie† or let me get away with it. The sting of getting spanked had often been upon my bum in my younger years. But I honestly didn’t know what I was doing wrong. The â€Å"lies† I was accused of making were simply given truths in my mind. And then it hit me. Like a hail storm sent from the Greek gods that fell and tore away the bond between me and my fuzzy pink fog of fantasy, the memory. The remembrance of what had really occurred in the class room a couple hours ago. My world wasn’t real, or at least the one I had been creating wasn’t in the least. The bands of the horizon in my life slowly started to unravel and integrate in front of my very eyes. All of a sudden, from the very depths of somewhere in my being, a very distant kind of concrete place that resides behind my head, I heard a voice. Sweet and low, comforting yet powerful I heard a voice that was not of my own in my head. And it seemed to bend down and pull me close as a parent does to their kids after a thunder storm has just passed as it whispered somewhere within me, â€Å"BE ALIVE†. I started to cry, in fact rather mentally break down. And through my tear I finally gained sight of the light of day that penetrated and wished all the fuzzy thick fog of my fantasy  world away.

Homoerotic Unions Make Up for Unsatisfying Marriages Essay -- Marriage

Homoerotic Unions Make Up for Unsatisfying Marriages Marriage is undeniably effective for some things such as procreation and rearing those produced children.Ê Biologically, all creatures need heterosexual union of some kind to continue their species, but this union need not be a required social construct.Ê In ancient and classical Greece, as well as in much of the world today, marriage is a social expectation.Ê Elders encourage young men to choose their even younger wives at the expected time and to create a respectable typical household.Ê But is marriage actually necessary or even what people desire?Ê Hellenic marriage seems to be constructed in such a way as to leave many Greeks unsatisfied and discontent.Ê Why else would adultery and keeping mistresses be so prevalent?Ê One strong indicator of this general dissatisfaction is the prevalence of homoerotic relationships and their benefits compared to the benefits of marriage.Ê Based on textual evidence provided in Plato?s Symposium and Sappho?s lyr ic poetry, homoerotic relationships seem to be important and often essential unions that do not fit into the social construct of Hellenic marriages.Ê ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ?We human beings will never attain happiness unless we find perfect love (Plato 193c,? says Plato?s version of comic playwright Aristophanes.Ê However, it is not necessarily a joke.Ê For many people, perfect love is not to be found in Hellenic marriage.Ê Rather, their natural desires lead them towards a lover or life partner of the same sex.Ê It seems that many intellectual Greeks understood that homoerotic desire was inherent in many people, yet marriage continued to prevail as the leading lifestyle.Ê In Symposium, Plato has Aristophanes tell a... ...struct of marriage, homoerotic relationships allow power dynamics to be based on personal rather than societal stipulations, thereby being more fulfilling for many people. ÊSince there was undeniable same sex desire in many people, these relationships were inevitable in ancient and classical Greece.Ê Unfortunately, as long as these people lived in a society where heterosexual marriage was necessary, they could not pursue their homoerotic relationships as lifelong partnerships.Ê Pausanius and Agathon?s relationship was a rare exception, yet, they did not actually live together.Ê Marriage required people to stay in socially determined, inherently unbalanced, heterosexual relationships and thereby left many unsatisfied.Ê Thus, the presence of these homoerotic relationships, shows that many people were not happy in their traditional, Hellenic marriages.Ê

Patient`s Laws Essay

Patients should feel at ease when giving personal information to their physician or nurse (Burkle & Cascino, 2011). Patients may resist offering pertinent information if they feel their confidence may be betrayed. Confidentiality can only be broken when it involves a gunshot wound, injuries resulting from child abuse or an infectious disease, which would put the community at risk. Such is the case presented in Nathanson’s article titled: â€Å"Betraying trust or providing good care? When is it okay to break confidentiality?† (2000). The article addresses an ethical dilemma presented in an episode of NBC’s ER. Nurse Carol Hathaway promises two reluctant teenage patients who are seeking care, that anything they tell her will remain confidential, even from their parents and anyone else. Agreeable to this, the girls divulge they have been sexually active with multiple partners and suspect they have been exposed to a sexually transmitted disease (STD). Tests were perf ormed on the teenager for STD’s and receive Pap tests to detect any cervical abnormalities. The test results confirm, Andrea, is positive for the human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer. Promising Andrea confidentiality, Nurse Hathaway knows she must break the promise or potentially endanger herself and the community. Nurse Hathaway is faced with ethical consequences if she breaks confidentiality with her patient. Of these consequences are reluctance to disclose pertinent information, feelings of betrayal, enraged parents, disrespect of staff members, job termination, demeaned hospital reputation, poor school reputation, and a non supportive bureaucratic and legal system (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2008). Nurses are fearful of these ethical implications, which keep them from disclosing important information, which can have disastrous results (Griffith, 2008). Deontology best describes Nurse Hathaway’s ethical framework when she finds it necessary to break Andrea’s confidentiality. The deontology theory is based on the concept that a person adheres to what is right and wrong in their actions and thoughts rather than the consequences (Purtilo & Doherty, 2011) . Since this has become a public issue she is compelled to fulfill her duty by courageously choosing to bring the situation out in the open. Her reasoning for informing Andrea’s parents and school would ensure the appropriate course of treatment and avoiding further injury for the teen and society. Even though Nathanson says  there is no advantage in notifying the school of Andrea’s sexual involvement with multiple partners, Nurse Hathaway chose to do so. By doing this, Andrea attempts to take her life when she finds out the school is aware of her situation. There are several ethical decision-making models to choose from but the best would be Uustal’s model to handle this particular situation. Uustal proposes a nine-step method to direct one toward making an ethical decision. This model follows the nursing process and also includes and explanation of values when using and ethical decision-making model. Step 1) those implicated in the dilemma are the teenage girls, their parents, the students at the school and Nurse Hathaway. Whether or not to inform the school of the sexual behavior of the girls and of Andrea’s diagnosis is the ethical dilemma at hand. Step 2) without giving specific information about the girls, the school needs to be aware of the student’s sexual conduct with multiple partners. Step 3) the spread of HPV and the concern for the protection of the community from STD’s related to promiscuous sex are the issues related to the situation. A resolution to the dilemma would to inform the school of the concern for the sexual behavior of the students. Step 5) with good intentions, Nurse Hathaway notifies the school of the girl’s activities but should not kept their identities anonymous and only discussed her concern for the students in general about their participation in multiple sex partners. Step 5) implementing education in the school regarding the risks, treatments and prevention of STD’s would follow. Step 6) the main priority should have been informing the school of the promiscuity among the students rather than of the two teens in question and Andrea’s new found diagnosis. Step 7) Nurse Hathaway should have only discussed her concern for sex with multiple partners between the students. Step 8 and 9) if Nurse Hathaway had followed th is model, education could have occurred, the school would have been protected and Andrea’s privacy would have been respected. This particular model allows for the analysis of various options to sensitive, ethical dilemmas. An ethics committee consists of of representatives from different fields in and outside of health care as well as professionals, lawyer, clergyman, etc., from the community. With different perspectives, experiences, and educational backgrounds the committee can have a well-rounded discussion and provide suggestions proposed to advocate for the rights of patients and foster mutual decision  making in the event of an ethical dilemma. When conflicting moral claims are presented, the ethics committee can suggest an unbiased approach to solving the ethical dilemma (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2008). Consulting with an ethics committee would have been in Nurse Hathaway’s best interest before deciding to break confidentiality. Had she not divulged pertinent information about Andrea to her school, Andrea most likely would not have attempted suicide. In conclusion, as nurses we are confronted with ethical dilemmas pertaining to upholding confidentiality in our day-to-day practice. Ethical decisions should not be taken lightly and treated exclusively with sensitivity for our patients and the public. Making the wrong decision could cost us the trust we build with out patients and community and our job. Burkhardt, M. A., & Nathaniel, A. K. (2008). Ethics & issues in contemporary nursing (3rd ed.). Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning. Burkle, C. M., & Cascino, G. D. (2011, December). Medicine and the media: Balancing the public’s right to know with the privacy of the patient. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 86(12), 1192-1196. Ethical decision-making lecture [Module 3 lecture]. Retrieved from Grand Canyon University: http://my.gcu.edu. Griffith, R. (2008). Patient confidentiality: rights and duties of nurse prescribers. Nurse Prescribing, 6(2), 116-120. Purtilo, R. B., & Doherty, R. B. (2011). Ethical dimensions in the health professions (5th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.

Role Adversity Plays in Shaping Identity

Role adversity plays in shaping an individual’s identity Discuss the idea(s) developed by the text creator in your chosen text about the role adversity plays in shaping an individual’s identity. A man is insensible to appreciate prosperity until he has tasted adversity. Adverse situations shape an individual’s identity and play a significant role in one’s life by shaping personal values, determining one’s own potential and self worth. Khaled Hosseini conveys how hardships shape individuals identities through the characters of Amir, Baba, Hassan and Ali in his novel The Kite Runner. Like every individual they go through a series of incidents and hardships that shape who they become and how well they deal with struggles in life. Life is not about finding one’s own self, but about creating and learning from experiences. As one goes from childhood to adulthood and deals with the hardships of life, they grow as a person and learn from their experiences. Amir’s journey of life displays how incidents and hardships shape ones identity. Amir as the kite fighter lets Hassan the kite runner get raped by Assef due to fear, jealousy and need for love. He sacrifices Hassan for his selfish desires and the need to prove himself worthy to Baba. â€Å"I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. † Hassan’s rape shaped Amir’s identity and his personal values. He valued Hassan but he valued Baba’s love even more. He valued his need for acceptance more than humanity and loyalty to his friend. Rape created guilt and regrets; it shaped Amir’s personal values. After betrayal the need to belong was a struggle for Amir. He looked for ways to make Baba proud of him and searched for acceptance. It’s only natural to want to be accepted and loved however one has to decide how far they are willing to go to achieve that. Amir’s actions and decisions resulted in his loss of innocence which shaped his identity and character. Adverse situations in Amir’s life made him realize his own potential and had an effect on self worth. When Amir is at last given a way to be good again he redeems himself by becoming the kite runner. Amir goes into Afghanistan under the Taliban regime, as an adult, to rescue Sohrab. By rescuing Amir relives himself of overwhelming guilt that compounded over years. Getting beaten up by the rapist and bringing Sohrab back home makes him feel worthy. He no longer feels useless however he achieves true redemption when he becomes the kite runner instead of the kite fighter for Sohrab. By saying â€Å"For you, a thousand times over,† he amends for Baba and his sins and forgives himself. Hardships made Amir who he was since the beginning and he grew as a person by the end. Amir learned from experience and determined how adversity played a role in shaping his values, determining his potential and providing him with a feeling of self worth. Every individual learns from experience and grows as a person all together. Baba as Amir’s father also faced adversity and it shaped his identity as a person. Incidents from his past created his future and played a significant role in creating his character. Baba slept with Ali’s wife behind his back and Hassan was the living proof of his betrayal and disloyalty towards his friend. Sanaubar carrying Baba’s son created an adverse situation which teaches everyone a lesson about honor and disloyalty. All his life he had to hide the truth from the world and by keeping Ali and Hassan safe in his house he was revising for his mistakes. â€Å"I don’t care about the money or the watch. † He forgives Hassan for stealing despite the fact that he considered theft as the only crime. He was always nice to Ali because he was guilty and wanted redemption. His past affected his decisions and shaped his identity. It strengthened his personal values and made him question his self worth. Baba’s experiences with women in his life made him stronger since he stood up for a strange women’s honor on their way to Pakistan. When the Russian soldier asked for half an hour with the lady in the back Baba stood up and spoke against it. Baba had the courage due to his past experiences and adverse situations he has already faced. I will take a thousand of his bullets before I let this indecency take place. † His personal values and beliefs went against Russian soldiers demands only because incidents before have had an impact on his character and they shaped his identity. Baba constantly tries to do good deeds to redeem and perhaps forgive himself. Another example of shaping identity is society pressure. Baba’s image mattered, how other people saw him and how they treated him was a part of his personal values and self worth. Wealth, status and honor were how he was portrayed in front of society. Society pressure and judgment shaped Baba’s identity and impacted his decisions. He was ashamed to tell everyone that he is Hassan’s father, a father to a Hazzara. He did not want to lose his identity of being a Pashtun or be disrespected due to his past. Just as Amir Baba was willing to deal with guilt and regret for personal desires and searched for true redemption the rest of his life. Different people have various beliefs and their own way of doing things. Hassan was one exceptional character whose loyalty overruled all betrayals in the novel. Just as any other individuals Hassan dealt with hardships in life however Hassan’s selflessness made him far different from Amir and Baba. Hassan was illiterate and wanted to learn how to read and write. He used Amir for his personal desires, the desire to read and learn. â€Å"we sat for hours under that tree, sat there until the sun faded in the west, and still Hassan insisted we had enough daylight for one more story, one more chapter. † At that time in Afghanistan written words were no use for servants especially if they were labeled a Hazzara. Hassan being Ali’s son, who was only true for the world, had to live with being illiterate and deprived from his rights to knowledge. Difficult events and hardships shaped Hassan’s identity and life. His illiteracy was a part of him and had an impact on the decisions Hassan made in life. Hassan was naive and his innocence poured out through his actions of friendship and true loyalty. The character of Ali also conveys how situations of life shape ones identity, how they create a person and determine ones potential. Ali was Baba’s servant and that was a reason for why he was never able to speak up for justice. When Hassan was framed for stealing from Amir, Ali had the choice to tell the truth, he restrained from giving up Amir only because he gave Hassan his word. Baba and Amir were always superior and Ali’s personal values told him that it was better to leave it as it was. Ali realized his self potential then and left home with his honor and dignity. Adversity was essential for developing his self worth and Ali’s role as the servant shaped his identity and plays a significant role in his values and beliefs. Similar to Ali Hassan strengthened his beliefs through hardships and truggles, Hassan was loyal at the beginning and despite of all the betrayal and deception from Amir he stood loyal and strong until the end when he sacrificed himself once again while guarding Baba’s house. When faced with adversity, there are a select few who can push it aside for the greater good. It takes a special kind of person to do what Hassan did. He followed through his principles which s haped his character and identity. People don’t appreciate happiness and everything they have until life takes a turn and teaches a valuable lesson. Amir, Hassan, Baba and Ali’s identities and characters were shaped around adverse situations and hardships of life. Difficult situations they faced created who they were; it strengthened their personal values, determined their potential and provided the feeling of self worth. Adversity teaches one’s self that a path with no obstacles, probably doesn’t lead anywhere. It is essential for growth of an individual throughout life because sometimes in tragedy one finds his life purpose- the eye sheds a tear to find its focus.

An Overview Of Immanuel Kant Essays - Kantianism, Free Essays

An Overview Of Immanuel Kant Essays - Kantianism, Free Essays An Overview Of Immanuel Kant An overview of Immanuel Kant By Scott Haywood Philosophy 101 Harold McSwain, Ph.D. The exploration into Immanuel Kants thought is one of, insight, perception, and open-mindedness. His work in the field of philosophy and intellectual development spanned over thirty-five years. He wrote on virtually all philosophical topics but his love was in the branch of metaphysics. His role in the evolvement of modern thought is vast and profound. Immanuel Kant was born, lived, and died in Konigsberg, East Prussia. Although he never left East Prussia, he is one of the most highly regarded philosophers of modern times. This paper will be an overview of his thoughts. We can divide Kants career into four phases. The First of which stems from 1746 to 1759, this is referred to as the period of infatuation. During this time, his main propose was to provide a foundation for metaphysics. Correspondingly, he developed a rationalist epistemology that could justify the possibility of the knowledge of God and what Kant refers to as, the first causes of nature.(1) The second phase from, 1760 to 1766, is called the, period of disillusionment. In this phase he broke from his earlier epistomolgy and was prone towards a more, Cartisain, skeptical, view point. Kant rejected the possibility of metaphysics transcending the limits of experience.(1) The third phase, 1760 to 1766, was called partial reconciliation, he returned to metaphysics in the belief that he could finally provide a solid foundation for it. He also sketched plans for his thoughts on ontology.(1) The fourth and final phase of Kants career, 1772 to 1780, is referred to as the, period of divorce. At this point in his career, he had realized that his renewed confidence in metaphysics could not solve one fundamental problem: How are synthetic a priori principles valid experiences if they are not derived from it?(1) Between 1771-1780, Kant published virtually nothing, he spent most of his time reflecting and studying. The end of this silent decade was closed by the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) in the 1780s he published five dissertations. He published many other essays and lectures until the late 1790s when he revised of some of his basic views on science and metaphysics, his work remains unfinished due to his death at eighty years of age in 1804. His final work, although not completed, was edited and published under the title, Opus Postumum.(3) The main idea of what most call, Kants greatest work, the Critique of Pure Reason, is with the possibility of metaphysics, understood as the philosophical knowledge that transcends the bounds of experience. For Kant, such knowledge claims to be both synthetic and a priori, which is knowledge attained only from operations of the mind, therefore he sirmises that God exists and that every event has a cause, much like St. Thomas Aquinas. Kant also belived that all mathematical propostions are of the same nature (synthetic a priori).(5) The second concern with Kants metaphysics in the Critique of Pure Reason is with the antinomies or pairs of contradictory propositions. Because of his reflections on the concept of a world, he became convinced that reason inevetably falls into contradiction with itself when it endeavors to think the whole. For example, does the universe have a beginning? Has the universe been around for an infinite amount of time? This would lead to hopeless skepticism, Ka nt came to see that the fate of metaphysics is crucially dependent on a successful resolution of the antinomies as well as an account of the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge.(3) To solve this problem Kant came to a Copernican revolution in philosophy, since he compared his innovation to Copernicus first thoughts. The way his thoughts were conjectured was, to reverse the usual way we think of our knowledge conforming to the realm of objects, instead we should think of objects conforming to our ways of knowing. Therefore, he thought that human knowledge was limited to appearances or phenomena, whereas things-in-themselves are thinkable but not actually knowable. Kant termed this way of thought as transcendental idealism so both pairs of the contradiction could be proved true.(4) In the Metaphysics of Ethics (1797) Kant described his ethical system, which is based on a belief that

Subjective points of view essays

Subjective points of view essays This issue can come from both the relativist and subjectivist points of view. It is a subjective point of view because it is talking about two people, President George Bush and presidential candidate John Kerry as individuals that are running for the head office and control of the United States of America. Although, it can be seen as more than just two people running for President but as two different parties or cultures, the Democratic and Republican Parties who fighting for office and essentially control over the United Stats for the next four years. An example of a subjective point of view from the democratic point of view would be that Kerry speaks of Bush having no credibility with foreign leaders and therefore not able to control the world in a respectable way. While a relativist point of view would be that Kerry states the Bush administration is a do nothing presidency... who has done nothing to create jobs [or] has done nothing to relieve the burden of the middle class. Another example of a relativist view point would be that the war in Iraq is all a mess because of George bush and Dick Cheney as stated by John Edwards. The first example is directed toward Bush personally while the last two examples were for the Republican Party that is now in office. On the other side the Republican Party speaks of Kerry and the Democratic Party as flip-flops because Kerry cannot make up his mind on any key issues, as he has changed his position on the war in Iraq at least nine times and therefore his statements are hardly creditable at all. I believe that the Arguments can come from either point of view depending on how a person looks at the situation and how deep they read into it. ...