18Th Century European Enlightenment Essays (913 words) -

18Th Century European Enlightenment 18th Century European Enlightenment The Enlightenment is a name given by historians to an intellectual movement that was predominant in the Western world during the 18th century. Strongly influenced by the rise of modern science and by the aftermath of the long religious conflict that followed the Reformation, the thinkers of the Enlightenment (called philosophes in France) were committed to secular views based on reason or human understanding only, which they hoped would provide a basis for beneficial changes affecting every area of life and thought. The more extreme and radical philosophes--Denis Diderot, Claude Adrien Helvetius, Baron d'Holbach, the Marquis de Condorcet, and Julien Offroy de La Mettrie (1709-51)--advocated a philosophical rationalism deriving its methods from science and natural philosophy that would replace religion as the means of knowing nature and destiny of humanity; these men were materialists, pantheists, or atheists. Other enlightened thinkers, such as Pierre Bayle, Voltaire, David Hume, Jean Le Rond D'alembert, and Immanuel Kant, opposed fanaticism, but were either agnostic or left room for some kind of religious faith. All of the philosophes saw themselves as continuing the work of the great 17th century pioneers--Francis Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Leibnitz, Isaac Newton, and John Locke--who had developed fruitful methods of rational and empirical inquiry and had demonstrated the possibility of a world remade by the application of knowledge for human benefit. The philosophes believed that science could reveal nature as it truly is and show how it could be controlled and manipulated. This belief provided an incentive to extend scientific methods into every field of inquiry, thus laying the groundwork for the development of the modern social sciences. The enlightened understanding of human nature was one that emphasized the right to self-expression and human fulfillment, the right to think freely and express one's views publicly without censorship or fear of repression. Voltaire admired the freedom he found in England and fostered the spread of English ideas on the Continent. He and his followers opposed the intolerance of the established Christian churches of their day, as well as the European governments that controlled and suppressed dissenting opinions. For example, the social disease which Pangloss caught from Paquette was traced to a very learned Franciscan and later to a Jesuit. Also, Candide reminisces that his passion for Cunegonde first developed at a Mass. More conservative enlightened thinkers, concerned primarily with efficiency and administrative order, favored the enlightened despotism of such monarchs as Emperor Joseph II, Frederick II of Prussia, and Catherine II of Russia. Enlightened political thought expressed demands for equality and justice and for the legal changes needed to realize these goals. Set forth by Baron de Montesquieu, the changes were more boldly urged by the contributors to the great Encyclopedie edited in Paris by Diderot between 1747 and 1772, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Cesare Beccaria, and finally by Jeremy Bentham, whose utilitarianism was the culmination of a long debate on happiness and the means of achieving it. The political writers of the Enlightenment built on and extended the rationalistic, republican, and natural-law theories that had been evolved in the previous century as the bases of law, social peace, and just order. As they did so, they also elaborated novel doctrines of popular sovereignty that the 19th century would transform into a kind of nationalism that contradicted the individualistic outlook of the philosophes. Among those who were important in this development were historians such as Voltaire, Hume, William Robertson, Edward Gibbon, and Giambattista Vico. Their work showed that although all peoples shared a common human nature, each nation and every age also had distinctive characteristics that made it unique. These paradoxes were explored by early romantics such as Johann Georg Hamman and Johann Gottfried von Herder. Everywhere the Enlightenment produced restless men impatient for change but frustrated by popular ignorance and official repression. This gave the enlightened literati an interest in popular education. They promoted educational ventures and sought in witty, amusing, and even titillating ways to educate and awaken their contemporaries. The stories of Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle or Benjamin Franklin, the widely imitated essays of Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, and many dictionaries, handbooks, and encyclopedias produced by the enlightened were written to popularize, simplify, and promote a more reasonable view of life among the people of their

How to Use the Command Line to Run Ruby Scripts

How to Use the Command Line to Run Ruby Scripts Before really starting to use Ruby, you need to have a basic understanding of the command line. Since most Ruby scripts wont have graphical user interfaces, youll be running them from the command line. Thus, youll need to know, at the very least, how to navigate the directory structure and how to use pipe characters (such as |,   and ) to redirect input and output. The commands in this tutorial are the same on Windows, Linux, and OS X. To start a command prompt on Windows, go to Start - Run. In the dialog that appears, enter cmd into the input box and press OK.To start a command prompt on Ubuntu Linux, go to Applications - Accessories - Terminal.To start a command prompt on OS X, go to Applications - Utilities - Terminal. Once youre at the command line, youll be presented with a prompt. Its often a single character such as $ or #. The prompt may also contain more information, such as your username or your current directory. To enter a command  all you need to do is type in the command and hit the enter key. The first command to learn is the cd command, which will be used to get to the directory where you keep your Ruby files. The command below will change directory to the \scripts directory. Note that on Windows systems, the backslash character is used to delimit directories but on Linux and OS X, the forward slash character is used. C:\rubycd \scripts Running Ruby Scripts Now that you know how to navigate to your Ruby scripts (or your rb files), its time to run them. Open your text editor and save the following program as  test.rb. #!/usr/bin/env ruby    print What is your name? name gets.chomp puts Hello #{name}! Open a command line window and navigate to your Ruby scripts directory using the  cd  command. Once there, you can list files, using the  dir  command on Windows or the  ls  command on Linux or OS X. Your Ruby files will all have the .rb file extension. To run the test.rb Ruby script, run the command  ruby test.rb. The script should ask you for your name and greet you. Alternatively, you can configure your script to run without using the Ruby command. On Windows, the  one-click installer  already set up a file association with the .rb file extension. Simply running the command  test.rb  will run the script. In Linux and OS X, for scripts to run automatically, two things must be in place: a shebang line and the file being marked as executable. The shebang line is already done for you; its the first line in the script starting with  #!. This tells the shell what type of file this is. In this case, its a Ruby file to be executed with the Ruby interpreter. To mark the file as executable, run the command  chmod x test.rb. This will set a file permission bit indicating that the file is a program and that it can be run. Now, to run the program, simply enter the command  ./test.rb. Whether you invoke the Ruby interpreter manually with the Ruby command or run the Ruby script directly is up to you. Functionally, they are the same thing. Use whichever method you feel most comfortable with. Using Pipe Characters Using the pipe characters is an important skill to master, as these characters will alter the input or output of a Ruby script. In this example, the  Ã‚  character is used to redirect the output of test.rb to  a text file  called test.txt instead of printing to the screen. If you open new test.txt file after you run the script, youll see the output of the test.rb Ruby script. Knowing how to save output to a .txt file can be very useful. It allows you to save program output for careful examination or to be used as input to another script at a later time. C:\scriptsruby example.rb test.txt Similarly, by using the  Ã‚  character instead of the  Ã‚  character you can redirect any input a Ruby script may read from the keyboard to read from a .txt file. Its helpful to think of these two characters as funnels; youre funneling output to files and input from files. C:\scriptsruby example.rb Then theres the pipe character,  |. This character will funnel the output from one script to the input of another script. Its the equivalent of funneling the output of a script to a file, then funneling the input of a second script from that file. It just shortens the process. The  |  character is useful in creating filter type programs, where one script generates unformatted output and another script formats the output to the desired format. Then the second script could be changed or replaced entirely without having to modify the first script at all. C:\scriptsruby example1.rb | ruby example2.rb The Interactive Ruby Prompt One of the great things about Ruby is that its test-driven. The interactive Ruby prompt provides an interface to the Ruby language for instant experimentation. This comes in handy while learning Ruby and experimenting with things like regular expressions. Ruby statements can be run and the output and return values can be examined immediately. If you make a mistake, you can go back and edit your previous Ruby statements to correct those mistakes. To start the IRB prompt, open your command-line and run the  irb  command. Youll be presented with the following prompt: irb(main):001:0 Type the  hello world  statement weve been using into the prompt and hit Enter. Youll see any output the statement generated as well as the return value of the statement before being returned to the prompt. In this case, the statement output Hello world! and it returned  nil. irb(main):001:0 puts Hello world! Hello world! nilf irb(main):002:0 To run this command again, simply press the up key on your keyboard to get to the statement you previously ran and press the Enter key. If you want to edit the statement before running it again, press the left and right arrow keys to move the cursor to the correct place in the statement. Make your edits and press Enter to run the new command. Pressing up or down additional times will allow you to examine more of statements youve run. The interactive Ruby tool should be used throughout learning Ruby. When you learn about a new feature or just want to try something, start up the interactive Ruby prompt and try it. See what the  statement  returns, pass  different parameters  to it and just do some general experimenting. Trying something yourself and seeing what it does can be a lot more valuable than just reading about it!

EASTERN PHILOSPHER LETTER Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

EASTERN PHILOSPHER LETTER - Essay Example Of these different relationships, filial piety is the most important. Good family relationships can reform a society and thereby the government of any nation. Filial piety is the greatest virtue, and should be shown towards both the living and the dead. It is the love and respect for one’s parents and ancestors. Filial piety extends beyond the physical care of the parents. It means not to be rebellious, show love, respect and support. It means to uphold fraternity among brothers, to conceal their mistakes, advise parents when necessary, display sorrow at their sickness and death and most importantly carry out sacrifices after their death. Juniors should feel a strong sense of duty and reverence towards the seniors but at the same time, the seniors too should maintain duty of benevolence and concern towards the juniors. The soul of the departed relatives is dependent for happiness upon the conduct and attitude of their living descendents. One can fulfill duty by living a life of virtue, which contributes towards the glory and happiness of the dead. Everyone is born with good nature and this should not be spoilt by external influences. Temptations to evil appetites have to be resisted. Ignorance leads to attainment of vices and knowledge alone can lead one to lead a virtuous life. If students show solicitude for their parents at the end of their lives, and continue this with sacrifices when they are far away, then the virtue is restored to fullness. To perform the role in governing any nation or in the society, it is first necessary to perform the familial role successfully. If the emperor loves his subjects as he would love his own children, they in turn would love, respect and be loyal to him as their father. Filial devotion is not blind loyalty to one’s parents. A man shows true love and respect for one’s father if he remains loyal to his intentions for several years after the father’s death. During the father’s lifetime, you observe