Sunday, December 22, 2019

The Philosophers Who Contrubuted to the Development of...

Behaviorism has its roots as far back as the ancient Greeks. Hippocrates (460-377 BCE), known as the father of medicine, developed humorism consisting of four humors that corresponded with four temperaments. Physicians and philosophers used this model with its four temperaments for many long years. Socrates (469-339 BCE), Plato (427-347 BCE), and Aristotle (385-322 BCE) are often spoken of together due to the unique relationship they shared. Aristotle was the student of Plato, who was intern the student of Socrates, and it is their developments in philosophy, a precursor to modern psychology, that begin to lay the seeds for what would one day develop into behaviorism. Socrates began by teaching the need to examine in order to know truth,†¦show more content†¦In contrast, his view was one of a mind and body consisting of a single entity. While he acknowledged Descartes’ view of the mind controlling voluntary action, he expanded this to include all human activity. Locke (1632-1704) further discounted the work of Descartes, as well as that of Plato. He maintained that all ideas originate in ones experiences. A newborn is devoid of ideas until experience begins to form these ideas. Another leader in associationism, Hume (1711-1776) joined Hobbes and Locke in their rejection of Descartes’ ideas. In contrast to Descartes’ rationalism, Hume came to believe desire was the driving force behind human behavior, and not reason. The seed of behaviorism can be seen here if one can associate desire with a condition. Kant (1724-1804) is known as one of the great philosophers of modern times. Despite skeptics like Hume and others of the associationism movement, Kant sought to settled debate between empirical and rationalist schools of thought. Of his many beliefs, he held that space and time were ideas essential to human experience. Although Darwin’s (1809-1882) work in evolutionary observation might appear radically different from those focused on other areas, the theories he developed from these observation lead to such groundbreaking publishing’s as The Origin of Species. These intern caused an upset within the then accepted norms of philosophy and religion, had a profound impact on the academia, and further

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Death of a Salesman Symbolism Free Essays

Langston Hughes’s poem â€Å"Dream Deferred† is basically about what happens to dreams when they are put on hold. Hughes probably intended for the poem to focus on the dreams of African-Americans because he originally entitled the poem â€Å"Harlem,† which is the capital of African American life in the United States; however, it is just as easy to read the poem as being about dreams in general and what happens when people postpone making them come true. Overall, Hughes uses a carefully arranged series of images that suggest that people should not delay their dreams because the more they postpone them, the more the dreams will change and the less likely they will come true. We will write a custom essay sample on Death of a Salesman: Symbolism or any similar topic only for you Order Now In the opening of the poem Hughes uses a visual image that compares a dream deferred to a raisin. Hughes asks the question, â€Å"Does it [the dream] dry up, Like a raisin in the sun? † (2-3). Here you can see the raisin, which used to be a moist, healthy-looking grape, has shriveled up to become a raisin. Like the raisin, the dream has been on hold for a long time and eventually it has transformed into something very different than it once was. Because they look so different, few people would believe that raisins were once grapes unless they had been told. Similarly, a dream that continues to be postponed will go through a transformation as well-it won’t be the same as the original. On the surface, readers may not view the outcome as negative because raisins are valuable on their own. However, Hughes does not stress the taste of the raisin; he emphasizes the fact that a raisin â€Å"dries up† or loses its moisture. The comparison of the dream to the withered raisin shows how a dream that is postponed changes dramatically and will not turn out as the person originally intended. The next image in the poem â€Å"fester like† a sore and then run† (3-4) gives you a sense of infection and pain. Comparing the dream to a sore of a body, Hughes suggests that unfulfilled dreams become part of us, like a longstanding injury that has gathered pus. The word â€Å"fester† meaning something decay and â€Å"run† literally refers to pus in my opinion. From this perspective, it explains the pain that someone has when their dream always defers. A postponed dream is like a painful injury that begins to be infected. The next image â€Å"Does it stink like rotten meat†(5) intensified the sense of disgust. A dream deferred may also stink. If dreams are stashed away, will they haunt us like rotten meat haunts us when it sits too long in the refrigerator? If rotting meat didn’t smell so bad, how much longer do you think it would sit in your fridge? The smell is often what reminds us to do something about it, to throw it away. What kinds of things crust or sugar over(6)? Honey; cheese or candy. Usually things that left out in the open and that aren’t put away properly. Can dreams be put away properly? Can dreams be preserved if they aren’t pursued? Hughes compares dreams to sweet-tasting things, and comparing the bitterness of lost dreams. â€Å"Maybe it just sags like a heavy load† (8-9). Sagging things are things that are old, for example our skin, furniture or even curtains. I think Hughes is pointing out how important dreams are because they are heavy and if we ignore them, they grow to sag. Or does it explode† (10)? I think when Hughes uses the word â€Å"explode† he leaves it up to question. Explode could mean either from built up pressure or something more positive like fireworks or celebration. Whichever comparison, I think either are strong outcomes become your dream has some sort of result. Because of the time period Hughes wrote this poem, I think he wants the r eaders to question and think about their dreams, and what you are going to do with them; especially for African Americans. How to cite Death of a Salesman: Symbolism, Papers

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Tobacco Perfectly Competitive Market - Free Sample Solution

Question: Discuss about the Tobacco Perfectly Competitive Market. Answer: Introduction: The question states that the tobacco market can be assumed as a perfectly competitive market. As a result, the market would host a huge number of sellers and the size of each of these sellers would not be large enough so as to affect the market price. Additionally, the product sold by each of these sellers would be exactly the same, hence there would be no difference in the quality of the product sold. In such a market, the price of tobacco would be determined based on the consideration of the demand and supply of tobacco at the industry level and not at the firm level. The above aspect with regards to the tobacco market has been captured and represented below (Krugman Wells, 2013). On the left hand is the price, cost and revenue for a single firm while on the right is the industry demand and supply. It is evident that the individual firm is a price taker and not a price maker and the equilibrium price is essentially determined by the respective demand and supply at the industry level. It is noteworthy that the long run equilibrium is driven by the underlying price which plays the role of a equilibrating force. This is because if in the short run the firms would make economic profit, then new firms would enter the market due to absence of entry barriers. Over a period of time, this would lead to increased supply which would bring down price to a level where the economic profit for the individual firms become zero and hence an equilibrium position is reached where the new firms enter only to the extent an existing firm leaves the market (Mankiw, 2014). Based on the article given, the following two factors are responsible for the decrease in the tobacco production. Increase of tax burden on cigarettes to the tune of 12.5% during the previous two years Introduction of the plain packaging norms Impact of tax The following graph aptly captures the effect of levying tax on cigarettes as indicated in the article. Assuming that a taxation burden of $ 0.60 is levied on cigarettes and this whole tax burden is borne by the consumers, then the unit price of cigarette increases to $ 2.60. This leads to a shift equilibrium point from A to B. As a result of the increased price, the cigarette demand would plummet but the supply curve would be altered from its original position S0 to the new position S1. The net effect of the change in demand and supply would lead to a decrease in the cigarette consumption. The extent of decrease in consumption would be driven by underlying elasticity of cigarettes in the particular market where tax is imposed (Nicholson Snyder, 2011). Impact of plain packaging In Australia, the enforcement of plain packaging norms has limited the opportunity of marketing their brand to the cigarette manufacturers. This in all likelihood would lower the cigarette demand especially amongst the youth who tend to find the plain packaging non-attractive and may not be currently addicted to smoking (WHO, 2013). The following diagram accurately reflects the effect of plain packaging on the corresponding price and quantity of cigarettes. It is apparent that the plain packaging norms would lead to a shift in the demand which causes a leftward shift in the demand curve while the supply of cigarette remains unaltered. As a result of the above alteration in the demand curve, there has been a decrease in both the equilibrium quantity and price which is clearly indicated in the above graph. Therefore, it is evident from the above graph that the plain packaging norms would lead to lower consumption of cigarettes and hence would be beneficial to the society (Pindyck, Rubinfeld, 2001). It is noteworthy that plain packaging is rarely implemented in isolation and often involving levying of high taxes so as to enhance price coupled with decrease in demand so as to limit the incidence of chain smoking and encourage the users to search for cheaper alternatives. The price elasticity of a given product is driven by a host of factors whose cumulative effect needs to be taken into consideration. These factors include the nature of good (basic, luxury, giffin), underlying income of the consumer, cheap substitute availability and other factors (Krugman Wells, 2013). The tobacco demand is likely to be relatively inelastic (i.e. elasticity would be lesser than 1). This is primarily because the availability of cheaper alternative is highly limited particularly considering the addictive nature of consumption of tobacco in various forms. As a result, even when the price increases by some amount, most users tend to continue with the consumption although there is some decline. However, the formula for PED (Price elasticity of demand) is shown below (Mankiw, 2014). PED = - (Percentage quantity change/Percentage price change) For the habitual tobacco users in various forms, it is extremely difficult to decrease the consumption that too suddenly and only in the long run would there be seen tangible results in this context. Therefore, the price increases for tobacco would cause a proportionately lesser decrease in the tobacco consumption thus, the PED magnitude is lower than 1. Even though, through technology interventions products like e-cigarettes are being hailed as viable alternative for reducing tobacco consumption but there are issues with regards to their usage due to which these are not very popular. However, it is likely that in the future viable and safer alternatives of tobacco are available which would lead to increased PED for tobacco. The impact of sales tax on the consumers and producers can be explained through the assistance of the following diagram. It is evident from the above demand curve that the nature of demand for the given product is inelastic. This is apparent from the fact that even when the price increase has occurred from P to P1, the corresponding quantity decrease is comparatively marginal only as denoted through a shift from Q to Q1. Due to the inelastic nature of demand, the consumption of cigarettes would not decline even though the price may increase as consumers are addicted. This allows the sellers to act a pass through mechanism with a major portion of the incremental tax burden being borne by the final consumer (Krugman Wells, 2013). This situation is reflected in the diagram shown above where the green area indicates the extra burden for the producers while the pink area indicates the extra burden for the consumers. The diagram clearly highlights the fact that area in pink covers more area than the area in green. In case, the elasticity of cigarettes increases owing to availability of comparable and cheaper alternatives, then the pink area would shrink and would be substituted by the green area. This would be indicative of the diminishing clout on the part of the seller with regards to pass the incremental tax burden to the consumers as this may lead to a decrease in the demand of cigarettes. Thus, it may be generalised that the incremental burden of tax borne by the producer is directly proportional to the product PED (Pindyck, Rubinfeld, 2001). References Krugman, P Wells, G 2013, Microeconomics, 3rd edn Worth Publishers, London Mankiw, G 2014, Microeconomics, 6th edn, Worth Publishers, London Nicholson, W Snyder, C 2011. Fundamentals of Microeconomics, 11th edn, Cengage Learning, New York Pindyck, R Rubinfeld, D 2001. Microeconomics, 5th edn. Prentice-Hall Publications, London WHO 2013. Reducing the appeal of smoking first experiences with Australias plain tobacco packaging law, World Health Organisation, Available online from https://www.who.int/features/2013/australia_tobacco_packaging/en/ (Accessed on July 15, 2016)