Category: 2010

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2010 Abstracts Stage 3

Ignoring the Other: an Enquiry into Levinasian Ethics and Child Abuse

For Levinas, the human being undergoes an ethical epiphany when it encounters the human Other. The subject, when faced by the Other, is commanded to respect it and care over it. A parent, when faced with the ethical presence of their newborn child, is called to rise to the responsibility and autonomy this human life demands…

16% of children experience serious maltreatment at the hands of their parents

The aim of this project is to explore ethical irresponsibility and the effects of abusive parenting. It shall argue that the experience of abuse distorts a child’s very structure of being. As such, the abuse victim’s understanding of themselves, their place in the world, and their relation to the Other is corrupted. This corruption can lead to difficulties in placing abuse within the construct of a coherent narrative identity. Similarly, it can effect a victim’s ability to appropriately relate to others as Other in later life.

It shall draw on texts from both Levinas’ philosophical discourse and cognitive research. To bring certain abstract concepts to life it shall introduce case studies of abuse victims.

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2010 Abstracts Stage 3

Art as Free Expression under Capitalism

My overall aim: To determine whether art can be free expression or whether it is always constrained by capitalism’s effects.

My objects: The works of; Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht and the film Fight Club.

Philosophy: Heidegger, Vattimo and Adorno.

The concepts I wish to explore include…

Alienation – Does a film that can be bought and sold provoke, as a result, alienation from its message?

Truth – Can a work under a capitalist agenda still give us the semblance of truth? I will contrast Adorno with Heidegger and Vattimo in addressing this.

Is it necessary to adopt Artaud’s methods of enveloping an audience as described in The Theatre of Cruelty in order to freely express under capitalism? And is this compatible with Adorno’s critique of culture?

By the end of the work I will answer the question of the possibility of resistance of capitalism by art. I will have taken into account the postmodern views of Heidegger and Vattimo and contrasted them with the philosophy of Adorno. At the end I will have determined whether any of the artists mentioned have produced any works of originality or if, under capitalism, this is merely an illusion. I will also determine whether a film like Fight Club can be seen as original in its criticism of capitalism.

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2010 Abstracts Stage 2

Unmasking the Hero: Re-Evaluating Heroic Morality with Reference to the Graphic Novel Watchmen

The object concerning my project is the comic book character The Comedian. In my project I want to investigate how The Comedian can be considered to be evil by conventional morality and yet referred to as a hero. The main objective of my project will be to argue that although the Comedian acts beyond conventional morality, his label as a Hero is very much deserved. He is the epitome of what a Hero should be and so beyond normal considerations.

In my project two other characters from the comic book will also be discussed, Rorschach and Ozymandias, both of which illustrate two alternative moral systems. Rorschach takes on Kant’s Deontological value system that argues for universal morality known as the categorical imperative. It is obvious in the end that due to Rorschach’s moral inclinations he is not able to function as person let alone a hero. Ozymandias on the other hand illustrates Mill’s concept of Utilitarianism. Ozymandias justifies his actions in killing millions of people by arguing that it is for the greater good. Is the sacrifice too great? If it is ever discovered what he did would he still be considered a hero? Both these moral systems are considered to be socially accepted conventions. However I will argue that although they may be acceptable for general society, it is inadequate for a Hero to use either of these moral systems.

Unlike the other “Heroes” Rorschach and Ozymandias, the Comedian’s value system is over and above conventional social morality, he is the creator of his own values. The Comedian accepts that life is absurd and that society is not as civilised as we think it is and so he acts accordingly as the hero we need rather than the kind of hero we want. The Comedian utilises Hegel’s concept of the right of heroes to be the lawgivers in an uncivilised time. They are granted the right to do whatever is necessary to establish a civilised society.

The Philosophers and concepts
Machiavelli – The Prince
Nietzsche – The Overman
Hegel – World Historical individuals
Kant – categorical imperative
Mill – Utilitarianism
– The Eternal Return
– The Rights of Heroes

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2010 Abstracts Stage 3

An Analysis of Nietzsche’s Notions of Culture, Self-Formation and Exploring Whether Such Notions, When Compared with Foucault’s Philosophy, Are Relevant in Contemporary Society

– Nietzsche’s notions of culture

– Nietzsche’s formation of the self

– Foucault’s aesthetics of existence

– Foucault’s advancement and caring for the “self”

– Ethical advancement and transition

This project will determine whether the ideas of both Nietzsche and Foucault can be translated in to today’s contemporary 21st Century world. The lightning pace of technological and cultural advancement present in today’s society can be viewed as an ethical minefield, and therefore I question whether the two philosopher’s concepts of culture and ethical transition can help 21st Century society in any way shape or form.

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2010 Abstracts Stage 3

The Psychological Costs of Capitalism: an Exploration into How We Are Being Emotionally Snookered by the Demands of 21st Century Living

In our society we are getting richer and richer and simultaneously less and less happy. Within my stage three project I want to explore how in modern life capitalism and the consumer culture has corrupted our values and as a result people are increasingly driven by an obsessive desire to define themselves by their earnings, possessions, appearance and celebrity. I want to show how this is responsible for the ever rising rates of depression and anxiety in England and America…

Heidegger’s analysis of boredom suggests that our lives lack personal meaning, and where there is a lack of personal meaning, capitalism creates all sorts of diversions and substitutes, mostly in the form of consumption. Through the work of Heidegger, I will reveal how our fundamental needs as beings are not being met. This endless pursuit of unfulfillable desires has created a profoundly impoverished emotional culture, subsequently we are no longer living authentic lives.

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2010 Abstracts Stage 2

How Has the Power of Mass Communication Changed over Recent Years and What Influence and Control Does It Have over Society?

A study of the ways in which society has changed as the advancement of mass communication has occurred.

Can we think for ourselves today or is autonomy impossible in this world of unlimited influence?

History of Modernity

• Modernity
• Crisis of modernity
• Post­modernity

Aim: To discus whether we have the ability to be autonomous in society today or are we are too broadly influenced by mass communication.

Territory: various forms of advertising particularly focusing on online advertising today

Philosophical concepts: Marxist ideas of the prevention of uprising, Guy Ernest Debord ‘The Society of the Spectacle’, Jean Baudrillard “The Ecstasy of Communication”

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2010 Abstracts Stage 2

Is Cooking an Art According to Kant’s Aesthetic?

My project is an investigation into gastronomy. My aim is to investigate whether cooking is regarded as an art or a craft or even maybe both. My territory is looking at two famous British chef’s Heston Blumenthal and Jamie Oliver. My philosophical concept is going to be using Kant’s aesthetic judgement from his third critique.

According to Kant art cannot be part of an aesthetic judgement, however there is a sense of ambiguity when it comes to the ideas behind Blumenthal’s molecular gastronomy. What is the difference between the two chefs? Why can one make it more acceptable for gastronomy to become close to an aesthetic experience?

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2010 Abstracts Stage 2

How Deceived Are We by Our Own Mind?

The aim of my project is to explore the tricks (problems) the mind plays on us and how a technique can overcome that problem. I would use Freud to explain the problem of the mind and use a Derren Brown technique which could overcome that problem. I will also show how they both share some similar views in certain areas. So do you know how deceived you are by your own mind?

Here are a few areas I will explore.
• I will explain Freud’s theory on forgetting ‘Proper Names’. I will then suggest a technique by Derren Brown which could overcome this. In this case, a technique called ‘Remembering Names’.
• ‘Forgetting Names and Sequence of Words’ by Freud can be related to the ‘Linking System’ by Derren Brown. This technique allows you to move onto the next word without any worries.
• A view which Freud and Derren Brown share is on superstition and the supernatural. They both disapprove of it. Derren Brown’s controversial programme, the Séance showed his rejection of the supernatural through psychological experiments which shows the illusions of it.

I shall use Freud’s book Psychopathology of Everyday Life to explore the problems of the mind. For Derren Brown, I shall use his book, Tricks of the Mind, and include his programmes as well, such as Trick of the Mind, Trick or Treat, and the Séance.

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2010 Abstracts Stage 3

Property Magazine: the Realities of the Market

Many would acknowledge, that in some form, the contemporary financial landscape is separated from what we would consider ‘reality’. The money which is exchanged within in the financial markets seems to have no grounding outside the markets in which it is exchanged. This edition looks at the problem and enquires to what extent this is a problem.

Capitalism. Can capitalism and the markets that work within be justified on moral grounds? A Property Week special report puts aside our intuitive moral assumptions and looks in greater depth at the concept of capitalism and the ethical dilemmas that arise out of this system.

Hyperreality. By commencing deregulation in the global financial institutions, have the governments of Thatcher and Reagan of the 1980s created a new economic domain of hyperreality? This edition looks at whether responsibility can be placed back into the financial markets.

Questioning the economic realities of the market with particular reference to the commercial property market

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2010 Abstracts Stage 2

Free Will in Relation to Advertising in the Modern Society.

In my project I hope to achieve an understanding of the free will problem and through this explore how various elements of society may subconsciously coerce us into action that we do not want to take.

I will look into elements of;
• Causal determinism
• Libertarianism
• Compatibilism
• Self determination
• Coercion
• Desires

I will also be looking at Hobbes and Kant to compare and contrast their views on freedom and then look at the modern society and explore how the concept of freedom can change and also how it is relative to the self. I will then look at political coercion and various forms of advertising to show how we can be controlled and our freedom can be easily threatened, I will then ask if we even truly have freedom for it to be threatened or is this coercion essential to society and is it even important that we have a totally free will.

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2010 Abstracts Stage 3

Consumer Culture. What’s in It for Me?

Territory.
The consumer culture/Modernity /Postmodernity/Commodity and the role of the individual experience. Essentially the current capitalist world in which we live.

Object.
The various theories brought forward by philosophers and sociologists such as Horkheimer and Adorno, Giddens, Lyotard, Marx, Featherstone, Slater, Baudrillard, Debord and Bernstein. The theories of Modernity and Postmodernity, their consequences when related to the concepts of Consumer Culture and a world of Commodity.

Change.
I am to chart the change from traditional world view through to modernity. The extent to which capitalism is affected by the culture industry and its movement towards postmodernity. Mass culture and the effect of industrialisation. The Influence of the Media industry, and the various problems we associate with advertising and marketing culture in contemporary society.

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2010 Abstracts Stage 2

Why the Trends in Suicide Rates?

New Religious Movements?

Aims: philosophically interpret the graphical data. Understand firstly why, since the beginning of postmodernity, suicide rates have dropped so significantly, halving in number on average. Secondly why they were inclining prior to this?

Sources: Oliver James’s ‘Affluenza’, Durkheim’s ‘Suicide’, and antisecularization theses.

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2010 Abstracts Stage 2

Though Hope Is a Virtue, Can It Also Be Considered a Vice?

Out of the ashes of despair came hope. Though the human race suffers so much hatred, famine, illness, war; through it all there has been hope, there always will be.

Through the works of Nietzsche and Marcel I intend to study the positive and negative effects of hope on the human condition.

“Hope need not mean expectancy. It suggests here rather the music that can come from the remaining chord” – George Watts

As long as there is man, there will be hope. Though it may prolong one’s torment, it is a necessary evil to overcome the despair and anguish in the world around us today.

“For hope, which is just the opposite of resignation, something more is required. There can be no hope that does not constitute itself through a we and for a we. I would be tempted to say that all is hope is at the bottom choral…. the only genuine hope is hope in what does not depend on ourselves, hope springing from humility and not from pride” Gabriel Marcel

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2010 Abstracts Stage 2

Absurdity and the Apocalypse. Meaningful Existence in a Dying World

Mankind has long held a kind of morbid fascination in the prospect of its own demise, and with that of the world as a whole. The apocalypse – the cataclysmic end of all life on Earth – has frequently been a subject of film, art and literature. In my project, I intend to investigate one such literary instantiation of a world subject to just such a cataclysm – the bleak and ruined existence described in Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ – with regard to the philosophy of the absurd, as found specifically in the works of Søren Kierkegaard and Albert Camus.

When faced with the absurdity and meaninglessness of our existence – by the tension between our intuitive feeling that our lives have meaning, and our inevitable failure to find it in the world – we are plunged into nihilism.

The absurd man has recourse to three possibilities upon his experience of nihilistic feeling; faith, defiance, and suicide.

Through an investigation into the absurdist thought of Kierkegaard and Camus, and with reference to the world imagined in The Road, I intend to show existence in the post-apocalyptic world to be the ultimate embodiment of the absurdity of human life; that in this Godless world, where death is an experience one cannot stop living, and where nihilism is substantiated, inescapably, by existence itself, we find the true essence of our being, and the true nature of our attempt to give a point to our lives.

I intend to argue two things; one, that our world and the post-apocalyptic one are, in terms of human meaning, identical. And secondly, that despite the absurd nature at the core of human existence, our lives can still be worth living.

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2010 Abstracts Stage 2

Art, Definition and Essence: Doomed to Failure?

Many Philosophers over the centuries have debated whether the attempt to define art is plausible, indeed, possible. Numerous artist and philosopher, alike, have tried to define art in one corresponding universal term, bringing together all sufficient and necessary factors involved.

Many denied that art could be defined at all; in fact, it was considered anti essentialist. Meaning that art has an essence which is unable to be defined, the range is so broad. Others however maintained that art has no essence and turned their backs on the philosophical notion of essentialism all together. They maintained that the essence of art cannot be hidden from us, therefore denied the existence of a definition. Philosophers’ such as Weitz’s argued in his highly famous paper “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics” that it was no coincidence that there was a constant failure from both artists and aestheticians to define art in a universal term.

The aim of this dissertation is to work through a multitude of philosophical views on the definition of art, to find out the terms that art is placed under and what qualities a piece needs in order to qualify. For example, what qualities have to be similar in order for a renaissance portrait and a contemporary installation need in order to satisfy a universal definition? I will be looking at concepts such as essentialism, beauty, essence, expressionism and reality within art.

This dissertation will use a multitude of key philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Weitz, Bell and Kant; along with others that interlink during the project.

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2010 Abstracts Stage 2

A League of Their Own: Can Professional Athletes Be Justified in Earning So Much Money?

MY AIM: To discuss the debate of whether or not athletes can be justified over earning so much money. This has been one of the biggest talking points within professional sport in the 21st century. My debate is primarily centred around the notions of ‘ethics’ and whether or not it is right or wrong for an athlete to earn the amount that they do. I therefore intend to look at this discussion from an ethical and economical point of view.

TERRITORY: I have decided to primarily focus on the NFL franchise in America, and the Football Premier League in England. These are two renowned leagues that have been well known to pay their athletes incredible salaries.

SOURCES: I intend to use four topics of discussion in attempt to dispute and support the justification of athletes’ salaries:
Thomas Hobbes – the State of Nature and Social Contract theory
Karl Marx – The fear of a capitalist crisis and the concept of Socialism
Milton Friedman – Business Ethics: what is the purpose of a business?
Friedrich Nietzsche – The will to power

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2010 Abstracts Stage 2

Commodification: Has It Tarnished the Beautiful Game?

• Historically, sports existed ‘to promote aretê or human excellence which could be applied to almost any endeavour in life’.
• Contemporarily, the market forces of Capitalism have taken over and money has become the primary objective – football is the greatest example of this transition from a character building activity to a mass-market business.
• What, though, does this process of Commodification involve? George Bataille and Guy Debord will be used to cast enlightenment on this within the context of the Surrealist and Situationist Parties.
• Furthermore, has the footballer become tarnished by this process of Commodification? In assessing the effects this has on the professional footballer’s character, I shall be drawing on Schiller’s Aesthetic Education and its arguments regarding modern society’s obsession with specialists.
• Alistaire MacIntyre’s views on how man’s virtues should be able to be summoned and used in all situations will also be made relevant

Schiller: ‘‘[contemporary society encourages the footballer to be] nothing more than the living impression of the craft to which he devotes himself’’

MacIntyre: ‘‘someone who genuinely possesses a virtue can be expected to manifest it in very different types of situation’’.

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2010 Abstracts Stage 3

Is a Capitalist Society the Best Form for Individual Choice?

What kind of dining set defines me as a person? – Fight Club, 1999. This quote from the American film Fight club, and various advertisements by IKEA makes one beg the question, do these systems of consumerism really provide the individual with freedom, or do they somehow take it away?

Hegel argues that civil society is the best form for which we can express our individuality and satisfy our particular needs and desires, he argues that the more needs and desires one has the freer they become because they can’t be so easily defined.

Sartre thinks that consumerism in modern society is detrimental to individual freedom, that although one may believe in free choice, corporations such as IKEA cause a person to lose their individual identity instead taking on an identity believed by society to be more suitable – one is no longer simply furnishing a room, but defining oneself as a person.

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2010 Abstracts Stage 2

Assess the Validation Theories for the Existence of Ghosts

DEFINITION: ‘The spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats’

My primary objective in this project is to investigate whether or not there is valid ground for the existence of ghosts. I attempt to achieve this through the study of previous case studies and claims to paranormal activity. Obviously this study can be taken further through the examination of the reality and how this influences our judgment of ghosts.

As can be seen in the photo on the left people have attempted to obtain hard evidence through the use of modern technology. Whether or not this has ever been achieved still remains to be seen.

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2010 Abstracts Stage 3

Manic Depression: an Illness Rooted in its Dark Past

An examination of the modern treatment and diagnosis of bipolar disorder in the light of Michel Foucault

Territory: Bipolar Disorder – This project looks at how the term bipolar has been constituted and how it came about, as well as identifying the stigma still attached to diagnosis.

Michel Foucault: – Foucault talks of madness and looks back over history to see how the mad were treated and viewed by society and doctors. The constitution of the term “madness‟ is historically negative so that today it is often viewed in conjunction with manic depression.

“What is called “mental illness‟ is simply alienated madness…”

Aims: To research the diagnosis and treatment of the disorder, historically linking it to Foucault’s thought.
Case study: America’s Medicated Kids – Louis Theroux, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Stephen Fry BBC Documentary.