TERRITORY: Lost In Translation. Sofia Coppola’s beautifully written and emotively shot film Lost in Translation contains many themes that are very pertinent to philosophical discussion. The isolation of the leads Charlotte and Bob (Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray) is palpable, enhanced to moments of hystericization in the mise-en-scene. The film follows the tentative growth of the protagonist Charlotte and the unhappily married film star Bob. CONCEPTS: Deleuzian film theory Sartrean theory of the imagination Deleuze’s analysis of film views it as a consciousness. I aim to attempt to analyse my territory in such a way. I will also attempt to analyse Acts of Faith a film for the Short Film Society in this manner. I hope that this will lead to a more profound understanding of the philosophy of film. A new way of broaching the territory without recourse to classical analysis. PRIMARY SOURCES: Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema One, 1986; Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema Two, 1989; Sartre, Jean-Paul, The Psychology of Imagination, 1972
Category: 2005
Territory: Derrida’s theory of deconstruction provides us with a position of duplicity that operates within the language of reason. This allows us to escape from the condition of falleness. In relation to this I will explore Heidegger’s: ‘end of philosophy’. Derrida’s deconstructionist theory is a theory that is applied to feminine writing. Cixous argues that when we read deconstructively it invites us to recognise ourselves. For Cixous, the feminine is the embodiment of duality and as a result she is open to the other. Cixous argues that writing is woman’s because woman admits that there is another. As a writer of philosophy and fact as well as fiction she maintains that one must write in the present with an acceptance of inevitable death. Heidegger argued that to live authentically one must contemplate one’s inevitable death. To see death without dying allows us to live and frees us from all censors and judges in life. Themes: Derrida’s deconstructionist theory in relation to feminine writing and how femininity is open to the other due to an admittance of difference. Feminine writing and how it sketches an alternate possibility to self other relations in being/becoming. Heidegger and his notion of the ‘end of philosophy’ and that philosophy was nothing more than the ideology of the western ethos and true philosophical questions are based on ‘being’. Application: I intend to explore my territory and themes in relation to the feminist critique of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, focusing on her translation of Derrida’s work on deconstruction and how this deconstruction is a political safeguard.
• Our bodies are our mind’s access to the outside world. This tool for spatial interaction is increasingly abused in our current times. Why has it become so apparently unimportant to us? Image, as opposed to our tactile relation to the outside world, has realised new status. In exploring this the image we ourselves create will be looked into. • The key subject to be discussed in this project is how our mentality towards clothes has changed through the ages. My territory will be the body but more specifically, the body’s interaction, as an image, with others in an attractive or repellent way. We use the body, now more than ever, in a fleeting and ephemeral way. • Lacan – recognition of our bodies as our own from birth to adulthood. Tangibility and testing of our own bodies in infancy. • Descartes – measure and quantify. Removal of reality and questioning and reasoning of the unknown. • Debord and Baudrillard – false images as expressions of the spectacle of society – a manifestation that resides and guides our society through mediation of images as part of a capitalist society. • Harvey – space-time compression. Reduction of our ability to live in normal realms of space and time. Recalling of the past and other cultures in post-modern design as a stability to the culture we are currently a part of. FASHION – a constant flux showing examples of the state of society. Acceleration and deceleration of trends with changing rate of living. DIVORCE OF THE BODY FROM THE MIND
Tibet is situated alongside the mountain range of the Himalayas and consequently it has an average land height of 10,000 ft above sea level. The large plateaux is largely uninhabitable, however for thousands of years the Tibetan people, who are partially nomadic have made Tibet their home. The climate and landscape make life hard, with a limited diet and primitive technology the Tibetans rely heavily on their Buddhist religion which permeates every part of life. Tibet has had a chequered history with other countries however it is widely agreed that in 1950 when Chinese forces invaded the northern region of Amdo, Tibet was a free, independent country. The Communist Chinese government believed that Tibet in fact was part of “The Motherland” and was in need of “liberation.” Over half a Century later, and 1.6 million Tibetans have been killed by starvation, imprisonment and torture, conflict, execution and forced abortions. The Chinese all but wiped out any evidence of the once integral Buddhist religion during the “Cultural Revolution” and imprisoned any Tibetans who were suspected of “holding on to the past.” The spiritual leader the Dalai Lama was forced to flee his country in 1959 fearing for his life at the hands of the Chinese and has lived in nearby Dharamsala in India ever since. During their occupation the Chinese have made very good use of the new territory they now occupy, the Tibetan people are now outnumbered by Chinese settlers, valuable mineral resources have been exploited to the Chinese benefit and nuclear weapons tests have been carried out on Tibetan soil. One of the most important factors in Buddhism is the belief in reincarnation, all our actions in this life go towards determining the kind of life we will have next and it is this reason that the Chinese were able to take over Tibet so easily. The Tibetan people believe that to obtain a favourable rebirth they must respect every other living creature, from a worm in the ground to a Chinese soldier. They are a peaceful people and even when looking in the face of their oppressors remain composed and dignified. In my project I will be referring to the ideas of religious fundamentalism, and what the implications have been for the Tibetans during the Chinese occupation. At what point do the losses of military conflict outweigh the gains of following a doctrine? Also has the Dalai Lama done enough for his people? I will also be looking at the power of testimony in my project, comparing that of Robert Antelm and a Tibetan monk Palden Gyatso. How did they relate to their tormentors and using Hegel’s master and slave dialectic, can we learn anything from them? Finally I will be looking at the invasion itself with reference to Max Weber’s “Theodicy of Domination.” Is there evidence to confirm his ideas and can Tibet use his findings to try to rectify their situation. I hope to give a detailed insight to the plight of the Tibetan people, how they came to be in this situation and how we might be able to help.
Foucault differentiates the forms of control over society in Discipline and Punish into two categories: sovereign and disciplinary. This study transposes these concepts of power to the dynamics of the capitalist economy. Sovereign power is exerted in the Post-War World by governments and international organisations. It seeks to make the world safe for the free flow of capital by removing any major obstacles which become apparent. Disciplinary power is exerted by the constant pressure to make all decisions according to the maximal advantage of profit; to the supremacy of the desire to be as efficient as possible in the service of thee capital. The basic structures of the economy are the hierarchical organisations of business. At every level of these orders there is constant pressure exerted from (1) above in the form of pressure to extract the maximum surplus value for the holders of the capital and from (2) below in the desire for promotion to a higher rank, so that one attains a closer proximity to the benefits of the capital (a share of the profits). When we see an apparently immoral decision being taken by an individual within this structure, it become hard to say that it has been committed by that person and he is wrong. This is because the structure of our society essential dictates that immoral decisions will be made in a world where the only absolute is the ubiquity of the profit motive.
Objectives • I want to look at how much of yourself you have to sacrifice in order to become what you want to be: how much you have to sacrifice your talents for the record company, the fans and even the other band members. • I want to explore how far commercialism has embedded itself in the music industry. • Is it possible to create and release music with any real amount of integrity? • What does it mean to ‘sell-out’? • How can a band keep ‘it’ about ‘the music’? • What does ‘the music’ entail? How Done • I will look at and compare the record contracts of a major label and an indie label. • I will look at Marx’s views on commercialism and capitalism and how they affect culture. • I will assess how much control bands have over their music and what they could do to keep it about ‘the music’ so that they do not ‘sell-out’. What Achieved • By doing this I will have more of an understanding of what kind of balance there needs to be with the band and the record company in order for the music to be heard by enough people without it loosing its integrity.
An exploration into punk, its roots, its philosophy and where it is now.
The past few decades have witnessed the rise of the application of international human rights law as well as the extension of a wider public discourse on human rights to the extent that they could be regarded as being one of the most globalized political values of our time. Following the death of grand political narratives, it could be said that in the postmodern era, human rights represent the last remaining utopian ideal; the last remain shard of enlightenment emancipatory values. However, if the twentieth century is said to be the epoch of universal human rights then its triumph is paradoxical since this period has witnessed so many violations. Furthermore, civilians have been killed by those purporting to defend human rights as illustrated by the Kosovo ‘humanitarian’ bombings. Thus whilst the discourse of human rights purports the intrinsic rights of all people based on nothing more than an appeal to humanity, there appears to be a great deal of dissonance between self-satisfied rhetoric and social reality. As we step into the globalized era, rights are transported all over the world and transmitted straight into the homes of people, the problematic nature of universalising rights becomes apparent. Is there such a thing as rights? Can they and should they be universalised? Can rights be squared with the deconstruction of subjectivity? If not, can a non-essentialist theory of rights be developed? These are the questions I intend to answer.
TERRITORY: An arcade. An area of great energy, albeit, completely spiritually empty. A place of total objectivity, total simulacra, total inauthenticity. Repeating themes of both Heidegger and early Buddhist teachings, Nishitani claims that the central failure of philosophy in our time is that it has not provided an adequate response to nihilism. The alienation in human consciousness caused by modern science objectifying humans and denaturalizing nature, is the nihil that cuts through human existence. STANDPOINT OF EMPTINESS (Shunyata) & ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS (Zettai-Mu) For Nishitani, the key to overcoming the nihilism that continues to loom over humanity, is the ‘Standpoint of Emptiness’, or ‘Absolute Nothingness’. As epitomized in Western existentialism, nothingness as nihility is still seen as a reference point of subjectivity or as something to which existence relates; it functions as representational correlate of existence. By contrast, nothingness in the sense of sunyata means emptiness of a kind that empties itself even of the standpoint that represents it as some ‘thing’ that is emptiness, or to which existence merely relates. Fundamentally, Buddhist sunyata does not denote nihilism or nihility in the sense of a simple negation of, or antithesis to, being; instead, it intimates the nothingness of being or the emptiness harbored by being itself. “When we become a question to ourselves and when the problem of why we exist arises, this means that nihility has emerged from the ground of existence and that our very existence has turned into a question mark.” (Nishitani) This doubt becomes the Great Doubt, as one is led further into the core of one’s being, there to meet the Great Death. This Great Death is the dissolution of the small self, from which emerges a total openness and freedom, wherein the self is no longer separate from, but realizes its oneness with, all the myriad things of the universe. This is the arrival at the Standpoint of Emptiness, where everything is seen in its ‘suchness’. It is a standpoint that cuts through boundaries of space and time and yet is firmly rooted in the present…a recovery of the fullness of the present moment that is open to eternity.
Fashion has changed dramatically between the Eighteenth and Twentieth centuries, however it is not simply the changes that the inventors of fashion have made to the clothes, but all the social and political aspects that have occurred between these times. The changes have altered how we see ourselves, our self-identity, and how we see others. Modernity “ thinks of society as in a state of constant flux, innovation and development as changes in knowledge and technology alter the identities and experiences of individuals and communities” Lyotard, Kant and Freud are the main philosophers explored, looking closely at the ideas of modernity and postmodernity, with particular interest in the sublime: “With The sublime, the response is more complex. One is simultaneously attracted and repelled by the object, enthralled by it and also horrified.” Sources: Questionnaires, Internet, Book – ‘Jean-Francois Lyotard’ By Simon Malapas
My Territory – 2 students from different backgrounds. Their opinions, beliefs and desires from work and diaries in their youth to their opinions now. My aims to explore the philosophy of childhood. What is it to be a child are they merely developing organisms as Aristotle may say -”underdeveloped human organisms”. The philosophers I am using: Aristotle change and causation, Plato education is relearning, Descartes and Locke on the development of cognitive thought, Sarte on Being
CHAPTER ONE: Introduction to Study, Background to Study CHAPTER TWO: Paris: A History, The Medieval History, Renaissance and Baroque, Enlightenment, Napoleon to the Revolution and Restoration, Romantic City and Haussmann, Republican Age, Paris and Art Nouveau with World War II Modernity, Modern Paris, Purism, Cubism, Industrialisation and High Tec CHAPTER THREE: Love and Romance CHAPTER FOUR: Specific Investigation of Individual Structures, Notre Dame, The Louvre, The Eiffel Tower CHAPTER FIVE: Conclusion Sources: Romantic Paris Thirza Vallois 2003, Napoleon III and the Rebuilding of Paris David Pinkney 1938, Paris Robert Cole 2002, The Emerging City Leon Bernard 1970, Architect’s Guide to Paris Salvadori Renzo 1990, Visits: Paris: The Louvre, Notre Dame, The Eiffel Tower, Trip down the River Seine
Objectives: How much is our present day society increasingly reliant on simulations for its reality? What affect does this have with regards to the individual and society as a whole? Method: I will look at how far society is controlled by mediations with regard to the television for example, as our main source of gaining knowledge about the world, and how this leads to the notion of risk society and the current climate of obsessive individualisation. My main aims are to explore the outcomes of simulations in postmodernity with regard to the importance of the image and the increasing occurrence of territorialisation, particularly in everyday activities such as the foods that we eat and the goods which we consume. Sources: Ulrich Beck, Risk Society, Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulations, David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, George Ritzer, The McDonaldization Thesis, Don Delillo, White Noise.
Mass produced items are everywhere. They perform cold hard lines on our imagination. How can we relate to objects, initially designed by people, but created by machine? As beings that came ‘out of’ nature, do we do ourselves (psychological and emotional) harm by surrounding ourselves with straight bricked walls and replicated items? What philosophical criteria are employed in the architectural decision-making process? Comparing and contrasting the position of Art Nouveau, with the position of Jean Baudrillard a century later, I argue we are alienated in our environment. This is due to industrialisation and the life doctrines capitalism preaches. To inject nature into our surroundings would increase happiness of the occupants. Art Nouveau epitomises an ideal synthesis of nature and machine. If Art Nouveau were to pervade our environment, we would be happier. It is no coincidence that environmentalism forms one of the two movements evidencing the powerful widespread surges of collective identity to have been found in the last quarter of the century.1 I have read the Communist Manifesto, and I have dealt with modern writers who provide Marxian critiques or developments in Marxian thought. In this essay I deal with globalization and capitalism and how they might have affected my environment. I look at an industry that deals with these issues day-to-day (landscape architecture). I look at the criteria that landscape architects might use when regarding chairs and connect human rights to furniture. The ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement should be incorporated more into our environment, as well as the sweeping curving nature-derived designs found in Art Nouveau. The Green Party’s plea is for “The need for a Reasonable Revolution” in the plight to prevent the Ghost Towns of Britain. Is Art Nouveau to some extent a priori?
Territory: Wycombe Abbey School. An all girls Boarding School founded in 1896 by Dame Frances Dove, whose aim for the school was “The development of each student’s talents and the fostering of an awareness of God and an understanding of the needs of others”. “A record 98% of the 250 A-Levels taken by 76 girls were graded A or B, 78% were graded A” 2004 A level results, Daily Telegraph Saturday August 28th 2004 Aims and Objectives: • To explore the concept of nurture within schools, arguing for Plato’s concept of a boarding environment to promote a learning community thus exploring more than just results, but also development of the soul. • To discuss the lack of social interaction between students and teachers, particularly within universities, in which interaction is minimal, and Internet and e-mail have become more predominant features of communication and learning. Plato’s Noble Puppies to Warrior Kings relationship has gone as now the focus for learners is upon results, not personality development. Possible Solutions to the Problem: Montessori Schools: The Montessori Method – developed in 1912 by Maria Montessori for, “Man is not only a biological but a social product, and the social environment of individuals in the process of education, is the home” ‘Free’ Schools: E.g. Summerhill, Brookwood, Standbridge Earls. Within these schools the freedom of the individual is the most important feature. o Lessons and exams are not compulsory o School Rules are made by Pupils and Teachers equally. “The most important part is the building and maintaining an environment where members of the community can co-exist in harmony and in personal freedom” Summerhill School Webpage. Mike Tomlinson’s Report: Focus on a diploma, rather than the AS and A2 system of today, meaning vocational studies can be regarded as more important to society, giving students more freedom to express their true interests, thus putting more into school and consequently getting more out of it. Philosophic Focus: • Plato’s views on Education found in The Republic focusing on nurture as the most important element of educating • Kant’s Categorical Imperative: It is evident that Free Schools will not amount in the Categorical Imperative as whilst individuals are happy, without qualifications society cannot move on.
Territory: Newcastle Buddhist Centre. My aim was to research Buddhism in the West using my territory, the NBC. My objectives included documenting the changes between traditional Eastern Buddhism and modern Western Buddhism, to understand why traditional thoughts of Buddhism have disappeared and to debate if religion is needed in a modern scientific rational society. It is clear that Buddhist beliefs have altered dramatically through time and movement from the East to the West. Western Buddhism appeals to modern day society because traditional Eastern religious views like rebirth are now only taken symbolically and unlike most religions, Buddhism has no belief in a supreme God. Buddhism can provide a society with guidelines on morality and ways of life, without conflicting with scientific thought.
The transformation in our conception of art, time and identity has, according to Lyotard, represented a postmodern break from unity and identity; an opposition to totality. We now reject totalising theories, and seek localised theories that explain the difference of life. Grand theories uniting all disciplines are then impossible. Whereas modernism was concerned with what we could determine, Bergson and Deleuze are concerned with the indeterminacy, the contingency, of Life. To what extent do we trust our preconceived notions of the world? How might this obscure the true nature of time and space, and therefore life? If life does not run along a single line of time, but consists of durations that differ for every being, then how should we try to live life? How can the cinematic affect open our eyes to the true ‘multiplicity’ of the world? Gilles Deleuze questions the grand narratives and conventions of life more radically than many, calling perhaps for a ‘rethinking of philosophy’ in light of the most important artistic development of the century; the cinema. In Chapter 1, I wish to look at the main artistic movements in Cinema, from German expressionism and Soviet montage of the 20’s through to the New Wave in cinema following 1968. I will then explore the capabilities of the cinema to produce new and diverse styles of thought through the movement image that allow us to see time directly, not as we experience it through the ‘human eye’ that is interested and organises. In chapter 2, I wish to look at the writings of Bergson and his philosophy of dynamism and change based on the continuous experience of nature that is falsified with the imposed divisions we divide life with as a means of understanding some underlying reality. The image is instead a simulacra with no foundation in reality. Deleuze believes that, rather than reality being actuality, or based on an ideal model, it is a constant interaction between these two; the actual and the virtual, and this is how difference is created. The impossibility of founding knowledge on structures allows us ‘the opportunity to invent, create and experiment’ with life and its possibilities.
Using Hegel’s Phenomenology, I examine the movements of self-consciousness apparent in a selection of socio-political incidents in contemporary Europe. Hegel’s work is not a rulebook for action or for history. But we can derive meaning in life only from the conceptual understanding of our experiences. Do all social acts have historical meaning? What part does morality have to play between consciousness and the other? Does true freedom mean the freedom to be righteous in all things?
Traditional Objections to Suicide which I Intend to Challenge: 1. Human life is sanctified, therefore it is wrong to commit suicide. 2. Suicide is wrong because it is selfish. 3. Man is made in the image of God, therefore it is wrong to take your own life. 4. When we die is God’s decision, not ours, therefore suicide is wrong. 5. Suicide is wrong because it deprives society of an otherwise useful citizen. 6. Suicide is wrong because it is ‘unnatural’. 7. Suicide is wrong because it is a form of murder. 8. ‘Life is a gift from God’, therefore suicide is wrong. Why is Suicide Still Stigmatised? 1. The role of the media: Isn’t the media guilty of undermining the seriousness of suicide by expounding sensationalist story-lines, e.g. ‘Tony Blair committed political suicide today’? Isn’t the media also guilty of reinforcing our negative feelings towards suicide to dramatise a situation e.g. using the term ‘suicide bombers’, instead of ‘martyrs’? Doesn’t the media fail to clarify our own confusions about ‘who’ is to blame when a suicidal act occurs? 2. The semiotics of suicide: Doesn’t the language we use as regards to suicide prejudice our understanding of the term suicide, e.g. the verb ‘to commit’ reminds us of the notion of crime (reiterated by the fact that suicide was only made legal in 1961 in England) and the fact that someone who attempts suicide is considered to be a “victim” is a difficult notion to comprehend given that a victim is someone who usually has something wrongful done to them – not someone who inflicts a wrongful action onto themselves. 3. Is the solution more immoral than the problem?: Whilst we are forced to acknowledge that suicide is a problem that has to be dealt with, given our extensive research of the subject, the problem comes with trying to implement a solution. One commentator has suggested the notion of pre-emptive incarceration based upon statistical analysis of suicides? Yet, how problematic would this be? Are the statistics too broad? Or are they too specific? Is it ethical to incarcerate someone because they are a potential suicide? Does the notion of incarceration revert back to the idea that suicide is a crime? What about the financial aspects of such a scheme? Can such a scheme make any real difference given that the existing methods of dealing with suicides (e.g. telephone services) are largely ineffective? Does the solution lie in a re-structuring of society, as Durkheim suggests? What are the consequences of such a re-structuring? 4. “God is Dead” (Nietzsche), and “Life is Absurd” (Camus) but suicide remains stigmatised: When “God died”, we may have expected the traditional rejection of suicide based upon religious (in particular, Christian) arguments to die with him. Yet, this did not happen. This suggests that Christianity did not install within us a sense that “killing is wrong”; what it does suggest, however, is that this sense of repulsion towards murder (in this case, self-murder) is innate within us – Christianity merely provided the vehicle by which to expound this view. Thus, when “God dies”, our prohibitions remained.
Aim: To explore how archaic traditions have been resurrected to suit contemporary circumstances with respect to the concept of ‘shell institutions,’ looking specifically at the Japanese Samurai caste and the code of the Bushido. Areas to be explored: -The history and practises of the Samurai -Bushido- the philosophy and codes of conduct of the Samurai, as well as the sources from which Bushido blossomed. -The development of Bushido, and its leading thinkers. – Parallels with Western philosophy. -The demise of the Samurai caste and its subsequent revitalisation.