In my project I shall explore whether Humanism would set out a better form of morality for the world. I shall examine this with reference to Pico Della Mirandola, who founded renaissance Humanism and who firmly believed that Humanism and Religion could live side by side, and Bertrand Russell, whose philosophy emphasises the importance of scientific empiricism. Humanism is a branch of ethical philosophy that aims to emphasise the importance of human beings being able to determine their own ends. Humanisms rejects the need for belief in religion, and prescribes the worth and dignity of all human beings. Humanists believe that beliefs come from our values, which are determined by our life experience. This life experience can be drawn upon and used to create morals that bring about the dignity of human being’s, and the use of empirical investigation to discover facts about the world around us. I will explore whether religion is to blame for religious hatred and wars. For my case study, I shall examine the religious war in Palestine, between the Palestinians and The Israelis, for occupation of the ‘Holy Land’. I shall explore whether this is a ‘just’ war and whether Humanists would call accuse this war of being unfounded and unjust. Furthermore I shall investigate how Humanism defines spirituality and morality without religious doctrine and whether following Humanism can be spiritual rewarding. I shall also explore: • The History Of Humanism • Life without God • Life without Religion • The Problem of Religion • Morality and ethics of Humanism
Month: January 2009
Territory: Braveheart the 1995 film by Mel Gibson. Focus: William Wallace: I *am* William Wallace! And I see a whole army of my countrymen, here in defiance of tyranny. You’ve come to fight as free men… and free men you are. What will you do with that freedom? Will you fight? Concept: Freedom / Free will. What I will do in this project: I intend to look at the concept of freedom and free will. In the film Braveheart we see William Wallace lead the Scottish people in an uprising against the rule of King Edward I. Edward took over Scotland when the Scottish king died without an heir giving Scottish lands to English lords: such behaviour led to an uprising in Scotland as lower class took on the English armies in a bid for freedom. Freedom is so important people will give their lives for it. I explore the Kantian notion of the transcendental self, he believed that our purpose was to be rational with intrinsic value because of our ability to reason. This ability to reason sets us apart from all other creatures. This ability to reason is only possible if we are autonomous, because how can we make rational decisions unless we have free will. I will then counterbalance this view with reference to Karl Marx. Marx believes our nature is shaped by a social structure that rests upon an economic base. This means we are therefore determined by economics, freedom is restricted by the means of production, and we can only have any semblance of freedom if we can afford freedom.
Object: Witches. Setting: 16th/17th century Europe, the height of the witch persecutions. Context: Rationality. How it is irrational to believe in witchcraft now, yet it was perfectly rational just a few hundred years ago. Aim: The aim of my project is to investigate the concept of the progressiveness of rationality; whether we can ever say that our rationality, and what is logical, is getting more sophisticated, and more correspondent to the truth. Whether we can say that our current denial of the physical reality of witchcraft is more superior to the 16th century affirmation of it. Method: In my project, I have first examined the ‘witch craze’ in detail, considering some significant points it highlights on the concept of progressive rationality. I have then examined philosophical opinions to support my findings. Philosophers: The main philosophers I have used are Kuhn and Foucault, who do not think a linear progression of rationality is possible. I have also looked at Lyotard and Kant, who do think progression occurs.
That which mankind has called war throughout the ages has become a very different phenomenon to what it once was; in our day and age we find ourselves part of a world continuously in conflict, but the very fact that we know this is due to the scope and depth of the information which has been compiled and disseminated by the media. This project will focus on how war, and in particular the very nature of our understanding and views governing it, has been inexorably changed with the advent of advanced information technologies. Paying specific attention to the means of its dissemination and the techniques and methods involved in this process, I will discuss how information, the very stuff of which our truths and ideas are composed of, and its constant manipulation not only affect our views on war and the societies which it involves, but also those of the entirety of our working geopolitical structure. I will focus mainly on late-twentieth to early twenty-first century U.S. warfare, explaining certain practices and decisions implemented by Americans as a whole, keeping these in line with the aims and context of my inquiry. I have chosen to apply Foucault’s ideas on genealogy as the central methodology upon which this inquiry will be constructed as I believe it to be not only pertinent and applicable to the subject matter, but more rigorous and conducive to the production of truth necessary to its competent investigation than any traditional historical method. Although I deviate slightly from the “traditional” foucaultian understanding of genealogy, choosing to rely heavily on statistics gathered through the process of polling and information distributed through newspaper, journal, and magazine articles instead of using mainly primary accounts, I believe my adaptation to his methodology to both ground my study in the temporal contexts which I analyze and complement my work and its search for interruptions within the context of political history, war, and technology. I will also draw heavily upon other concepts previously explored by Foucault to better explain my own views, with specific attention paid to the natures of truth and power; I will then adapt these ideas in such a manner as to allow for further elaboration of certain ideas essential to the development of my thesis which I will address later on in this work. In order to achieve a more in-depth understanding of the subject, I will juxtapose the philosophy of power and right of Thomas Hobbes, the ideas of which I argue to be outdated and now completely at odds with the realities of modern global, and especially American, politics, against that of Paul Virilio; a large portion of this investigation will deal with some of the more prominent ideas ascribed to this contemporary thinker, as I will seek to explain parts of his analysis of the first Gulf War through an inquiry of the media’s effect on the American, and indeed global, populace within this context. I will then conclude by condensing different aspects of both Foucault’s and Virilio’s theories into a single, working thesis.
During the course of this project my main objectives are to explore the purpose of war throughout history, to assess what can make war morally justifiable, man’s natural tendencies towards violence and to explore the place of war within modern society with policing factions such as NATO and nuclear deterrents. The main question asked within this essay is: with man’s natural disposition for violence, can the pen EVER be mightier than the sword?
Territory – Happiness Object – The search, relativity and morality of the emotion Concepts – ethics, relativity, utilitarianism and materialism Thinkers – Montaigne, Plato and Schopenhauer
The search for happiness seems to be a part of the human condition. It is a sometimes selfish, ambition that the human race, and western world culture specifically, feels is owed to them.
-What are the pre-requisites of happiness?
-Is it natural?
-Is happiness relative, i.e.: can the poor be as happy as the rich? Can the unintelligent be as happy and the intelligent?
– Is Schopenhauer’s pessimistic view of the possibility of happiness understandable?
– Does money and material gain lead to happiness or is it merely a superficial façade?
-Is it essential?
For my stage three project I have decided to study the unethical issues that surround marketing in contemporary society. My interest in this topic has developed due to the fact that I recently applied, and was accepted, to a postgraduate course at Lancaster University in ‘Management and Marketing.’ The application required a personal statement, and it was through this requirement that I began to consider how I could link my philosophical background to a management and marketing application. In researching the course I became aware that one of the taught modules was ‘understanding business ethics’, as a result I decided to focus on business ethics for my project. The area of business ethics that I am going to concentrate on is marketing ethics. My aim in this project is to give a detailed discussion into the various marketing techniques apparent in contemporary society, through this discussion I aim to establish certain ethical pitfalls that marketing schemes slip into. Within this investigation I will concentrate on two areas, false and deceptive marketing and selective marketing. Thinkers: Karl Marx and Theodor Adorno. I believe both are ideal for my project as both of their thoughts relate to a critique of capitalism. I shall begin with Karl Marx and his notion of commodity fetishism, in doing this I will concentrate on his work entitled ‘The fetishism of commodities and the secret thereof’. This will lay the foundations from which I will introduce the thoughts of Theodor Adorno and his work on the culture industry, and the deceptive qualities of mass culture.
In my project, I wanted to explore the notion of sacrifice in relation to Christianity, specifically looking at the idea of martyrdom. I wanted to contrast this with Bataille’s ideas on religious sacrifices and his notions of the sacred. My aim for my project was so that I could understand the reason as to why people are willing to sacrifice their lives for their beliefs. To understand martyrdom in Christianity, I decided to look at their beliefs and values that they uphold and teach. I then looked at the meaning of martyrdom, and how it has changed from meaning martus, ‘to witness’ to die for a purpose or a cause.
To illustrate this point, I looked at Simone Weil as an example. She starved herself to death as a protest to the treatment of French citizens under Nazi-Germany. I wanted to explore her biography and her philosophy so I could understand her values and her beliefs. I then wanted to contrast Christian thoughts, with Bataille. He argued that sacrifice is religion portraying the heterogeneous. It breaks the means-end lifestyle for those who witness it, however, for the person martyring their self, he argued that they want to do it to break away from ‘things’. After looking at Bataille, I wanted to finally look at Yukio Mishima. I wanted to see whether his death was for a greater ‘good’ or belief he supported, or whether it was an attraction to the heterogeneous.
Key Books for my Project
Christian Beliefs and Martyrdom— “Christian Beliefs and Modern Questions” by O.Quick-Chase and “Martyrdom—The Psychology, Theology, and Politics of Self-sacrifice” by R.M Fields.
Simone Weil—”Simone Weil” by S. Pétrement and “Gravity and Grace” by S. Weil
Bataille—”Theory of Religion” by G. Bataille and “After Bataille – Sacrifice, Exposure, Community” by P. Ffrench
Mishima— “Life and Death of Yukio Mishima” by H. ScottStokes and “The Sea of Fertility” by Y. Mishima
TERRITORY: West Ham United. AIM: In my investigation I wanted to see how the rise of technology has affected the human environment and identity. As a keen West Ham supporter I thought this would be an interesting place to start. From its humble origins as an amateur club to the rise of its top premiership I assumed this community has been subject to a lot of technological modifications over the years. Method: I examined how the club has changed from over 50 years ago in order to see the affect technological advancements have had with regards to the club; satellite television, the internet and advanced forms of transport illustrated how the human environment has turned into a global network. I also wanted to see how this has affected the players of West Ham United in order to see if the human subject has changed. After establishing this I could then see which philosophical theories were relevant to the past and present eras of West Ham United. I considered Kant’s theory of knowledge which places the rational human subject above the causal necessity of reality. This notion seemed to express how the individual in West Ham (the footballer and manager) related to the club in the past. I then decided to look at postmodern ideas on reality and the human subject. It expressed a more complex view of reality where the individual’s autonomy is undermined as man is unable to establish what is image and what is reality. I believed this expressed the organisation of West Ham and how the footballer relates to his environment in contemporary times. After examining both these attitudes I could then draw some conclusions about how we must view our human environment and human identity.
I cannot help feeling as though there is something seriously wrong with society at the moment if the way we look is the main concern for many individuals. There are a number of things that one must take into consideration as to why and how all of this possibly came about: internet, mass culture, mass consumption the list goes on, ultimately it seems there is a distinct relationship between the way in which we perceive ourselves today and modernity, and the ultimate question then is, are we autonomous subjects within modernity? And is this ultimately affecting our transcendence? I believe the most appropriate research methods for this particular topic will be mainly observational and qualitative. I am also interested in the historical context of identity thinking and the relationship it has with the body for instance the history of dieting, the fashion industry and investigating whether or not there is a specific source or reason as to why we think about our body shapes and physical appearances the way we do today. It becomes obvious that this particular topic is relevant to history and the attitudes people have on the subject matter are tied within the social situations at various times. In my project I will be making philosophical reference to Kant and the autonomy of the subject, discussing how in our present day there are various structures between subjects, for instance the internet, networking systems which mediate our relationships with others. Today bodily existence and spiritual existence are projected as the same…is this making it harder for subjects to know themselves? Are we fragmented selves? Jean Baudrillard points out in the Consumer in Society that the body has taken over the soul’s moral and ideological role as an object of salvation, and Oscar Wilde says “To be really medieval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul.” We have become a society obsessed with the way we look, but does the way we look in such a superficial sense really tell us anything at all about us as individuals… and is this way of thinking pulling us further and further away from ourselves and the understanding of others. In the case of a traditional dualism between the soul and the body, as especially found in Platonic and Christian traditions, the identity of the body will be relatively unimportant, because identity will primarily have to do with the soul, not the body. Increasingly however, it is the body that has taken centre stage in connection with the shaping of identity.
Territory: Terror and the Suicide Bomber.
Terrorism is not a new weapon but in the 21st Century we have seen it used to devastating effect. A 21st Century phenomenon is the suicide bomber, the human bomb willing to sacrifice their own life for terrors cause. The suicide bomber is an utterly baffling weapon 9 times out of 10 it is unable to be defused and its explosive force can cause widespread damage to infrastructure, troops and civilians. For counter terror organisations around the world the suicide bomber presents the ultimate nightmare and risk to the civilian population. It is a bomb combined with human thought and human emotion, a bomb that shouldn’t exist.
Concept: Freudian Psychosis.
The aim of my project is to engage with the terrorist’s mind-set, in particular the suicide bombers with respect to Freudian psychology. The simple answer is to declare terrorism and its follower’s psychotic thought, but could this assumption merely be just a Western attitude?
Secondary Concept: Levinas’s Autrui.
For further discussion I will also engage the terrorist with Autrui [the Other] to discuss if the suicide bomber truly understands the people it destroys as Autrui.
My Stage three project is a Foucauldian investigation into tattooing in England in the present day. I have based my research around Foucault’s theories of power, history and governmentality.
I have also investigated psychological and social theories that relate to the Foucauldian ideas of power and governmentality.
From working through my investigation, I decided that I should make history the greatest aspect of my analysis, and that allowed me an insight into collective notions in what I termed the “general society” and this has made up the main body of my work.
I have also investigated how the view of the tattooed community has changed, as well as investigating where negative opinions held by the societies at each point in history originated from.
I have discovered through my investigation that negative attitudes towards tattooing stem from the orthodox Judeo-Christian belief that the Body is the property of God, and that to scar or tattoo it is a sin against God. Tattooed Jews are still not allowed the same burial rites as non‐tattooed Jews.
This project represents a new understanding of tattooing as a genealogical entity, as much has been written about the social, psychological and anthropological impact of allowing tattooing in civilised society.
Main Aim: In this project I aim to explore the changes in Russian politics and ideology from the Tsarist autocracy through to the information revolution that ultimately brought to an end the oppressive Communist regime affected by Josef Stalin. With respect to these changes I will look at how important the concept of the autonomy of the individual is in maintaining an ethical and moral way of life and how the autonomy and subsequent freedom of the individual was affected throughout these socio‐political changes. The use of Solzhenitsyn’s ‘Cancer Ward’ is particularly useful firstly because of the personal nature of his experience; he was arrested and put into forced labour for eight years before being confined to internal exile following criticism of Stalin in a personal letter. With regards to this, the semi‐autobiographical nature of the book allows a fictional insight into the workings of the Soviet State post Stalin with the authenticity of personal experience. Secondly, it provides a detailed insight into how the government treated individuals but also of how individuals treated each other while under the morally dubious Stalinist state. Philosophy: Kant – A major contributor to contemporary ethical thought the works of Kant had a significant effect on how the individual was thought of to be able to work out and make their own ethical decisions. It will be important to see how the autonomy of the individual changes under the communist and totalitarian Stalinist state. Marx/Hegel – the concepts of alienation and the abolition of private property from these two thinkers created the original structure around which Lenin’s communism would be built. Their thoughts on both subjects will require explanation. Sartre – His post war work meant his name became synonymous with existentialism, the absolute freedom with which we make our decisions contrasted harshly with the reality of Russia during the mid 20th Century where people often declined to make the correct ethical choice, or were altered to act in a way unbefitting a moral human being. His later writings reflect a more measured approach to the effects of one’s situation and I will explore his subsequent change in direction. Personal Considerations: This project has allowed me to explore an area of personal interest (Russian literature) combined with the aspects of philosophy I find most interesting. I have also been able to understand the link between society and philosophy more thoroughly and regarding this the importance that the individual plays in how he treats his fellow man, no matter how powerful or oppressive the government is.
Do we still live in a society that is dominated by issues of class? • If so why do certain sectors of society refuse to discuss it and others believe that it no longer exists? • Why do we force social issues, in the desperate hope not to show a class divide? Aim: These were some of the questions I wanted to try and tackle this year. With the ever increasing topic of class being raised, I decided to question Newcastle students on their perspectives. Whether they felt that Universities were a key part of society’s social engineering, or whether they believed that there was a social divide at the University. Philosophers: Focusing on the work of Karl Marx and Theodor Adorno to illustrate the concept of capitalism, and whether we still live in a bourgeoisie and proletariat state.
My key point is to look into the fashion trends of Vivienne Westwood, I shall concentrate on the era of ‘Punk’ where Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren played a vital role. I shall compare this with the Philosophy of Georges Bataille who had an obsession with obscene things such as Human Sacrifice. Concentrating mainly on his Base Materialism and his writing’s Eroticism and Story of the Eye. Punk……. • Punk first emerged in the mid 1970s in London as an anarchic and aggressive movement. About 200 young people defined themselves as an anti-fashion urban youth street culture. Vivienne Westwood is often cited as punk’s creator, but the complex genesis of punk is also found in England’s depressed economic and socio-political conditions of the mid-1970s. Punk was as much a youthful reaction against older generations, considered oppressive and outdated, as a product of the newly recognized and influential youth culture. Creative and entrepreneurial people, such as Westwood, often contribute to an aesthetic that brings a sub cultural style to the forefront of fashion. Bataille…. This image of a torture victim from Taiwan fascinated Georges Bataille. He thought that “the expression on the man’s face is the ecstasy of sexual pleasure”. Georges Bataille believed, as Hegel did, that ‘history is dead’ that we need to come up with new and exciting ways to take society forward to a new way of living because as it is now it is boring. He believed that the key to this was through art, shocking people into change.
Inspired by the 1980’s setting of Alan Moore’s epic superhero tale, Watchmen, we consider reason and its practical application for the purposes of generating an ideal society. How ideal do we find such a setting? Has utopia been achieved? And if not, what hinders such progress? We centre on Kant’s philosophy which considers the realisation of Utopic conditions via applied rational thought, contrasted to Hobbes who considers the nature of man before rational application. Furthermore, if utopia is desirable, what would be the means to achieve such? To consider such we turn to the Utilitarian actions of Ozymandias!
Karl Marx: Here, fashion is nothing but ideological apparatus utilised by the capitalist system in order to manipulate the working class. I have linked these ideas with the collapse of the designer brand ‘Thomas Burberry’ whereby the infamous pattern was adopted by the lower class ‘chav’ and a decline in stature equated with a decline in sales. Deleuze and Guattari: I have drawn on the notion of ‘minor politics’ and art as a ‘becoming’. In a more positive sense, the punk sensation of designer Vivienne Westwood has, as an art form, generated a revolutionary community culture. There exists an issue that fashion is a trivial subject. I intend to challenge this misconception and show how this phenomenon can directly affect our society. I have further deconstructed the ideas of these thinkers and introduced the work of Hans-georg Gadamer, as offering an alternative approach and a distinction between fashion and taste.
Project Aims: To investigate the evolution of apathy and the changing attitudes toward it over time – from the Stoics to modern culture. Has an era ended? Was the era of positivity towards apathy correct, or modernity’s negative opinion? What does it mean to be individual today?
Object: Apathy
Concepts: Politics, Social development, the Culture Industry, the Last Man, the Other.
Change/contrast: historical contrast between the Stoics, the Christian theologians and modern society
Thinkers: Adorno, Nietzsche, Levinas
Adorno – the Culture Industry as a cause
Nietzsche – overcoming the Last Man
Levinas – Do we need to focus upon something ‘Other’ than ourselves to overcome our apathetic age?
Territory: My Territory is the Credit Crunch, from which I am looking into whether humans, as a race, are naturally self seeking individuals, or whether society impacts and influences us, making us this way. Concepts: The two concepts that I have chosen to analyse and examine are Thomas Hobbes’s theory of self seeking individuals within the State of Nature, with Charles Taylor and Friedrich Nietzsche’s theories of social philosophy. Our current economic climate created for me many questions about how we were able to get into the financial mess that we have. So I chose to investigate how and why consumers have become obsessed by materialistic possession, to the extreme extent that they are prepared to get into debt because of it. I believe that our recent economic crisis has arisen due to consumer spending and the change in political power. Therefore I began my project by comparing and analyzing the change in governmental power over the last 30 years, whilst researching the causes and effects of the credit crunch – because I feel that these two issues are interrelated – in the hope that I was able to find a correlation between the election of a new political power and the change in societies spending habits that led to the credit crunch. To support this belief I firstly looked at Charles Taylor, who believes that identity is socially constructed and dependent. This combined with Nietzsche, who saw the self as becoming and forever changing, supports my theory that society, trends and governmental power impacts individuals actions, which I have taken to include spending habits. To oppose this argument I analysed Thomas Hobbes who believes that individuals are naturally, selfish and competitive, because each only seeks to preserve and to strengthen themselves. I have advanced this theory to support the idea that humans are still selfish and competitive today, so what someone else has, they want. It is our new survival technique. Conclusion: I have concluded that society is now a combination of the two. Evolving as a species we have brought our selfish and competitive nature with us, which I believe has been propelled by societies, governments and trends to cause buying to become our modern day method of self preservation. Key Philosophical Source: Hobbes, Thomas (1985) Leviathan; Taylor, Charles (1989) Sources of The Self, The Making of the Modern Identity; Nehamas, Alexander (1985) Nietzsche, Life as Literature
The project will focus on the dis-unified status of truth, fractured worldviews and the public versus private debate; all of which are working against any conception of a holistic worldview. During the process of Secularisation of the West, a sharp divide has emerged between the private and the public sphere, determining the boundary lines of those things in the private sphere limiting them to the private life and allowing those in the public sphere to have full reign. This revolution started in academia and its growth has been so subtle yet thorough that it is now a core belief, not just of the academic world, but deeply engrained into the mind of every Western citizen…
1. John Rawls’ Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical “…open mindedness, not conviction is the mark of a good liberal citizen.” The modern liberal’s faith in the primacy of reason and commitment to neutrality means that, direct appeals to religious belief in the public square are impermissible since they do not accord with Rawls’ public reason.
2. Fact versus Value Assumption: reliable knowledge comes only from the realm of scientific facts, which are objective, rational, value-free and neutral. Then there’s realm of values which may be personally meaningful or part of our cultural tradition, but they have no intellectual content.
3. Truth: The Gatekeeper Religion no longer has a seat at the table of public discourse. “The most powerful gatekeeper is not a group of people, but in the realm of ideas: It is the dominant definition of truth;” What is today’s definition of truth? Truth is split into two separate and contradictory categories.
4. Secularism: A Neutral State? “[It is] quixotic, in any event, to attempt to construct an airtight barrier between religiously grounded moral discourse…and [secular] discourse in public political argument” Does liberalism provide a neutral framework? Is the secular state neutral? Or does it too carry underlying philosophical assumptions?
5. Historical Roots Tracing back where this thinking began; Plato’s twofold view of the world; Augustine’s ‘Two Cities’ and the Church Fathers; St Aquinas’ nature-grace tension; the rediscovery of Aristotle, then the effects of the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment and finally the rise of Darwinism.
6. Necessary Illusions, Convenient Falsehoods What are the effects on the modern self? “A human being is simultaneously a machine and a sentient free agent, depending on the purposes of the discussion.” The self is forced to affirm ideals like freedom despite it not ‘fitting’ in their worldview. Can a unified and holistic status of truth be recovered?