Category: 2010

Categories
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

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
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

Categories
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’’.

Categories
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.