Category: 2017

Categories
2017 Abstracts Stage 3

Is the Queen, as portrayed and understood by the Netflix production ‘The Crown’, truly treated as an Other?

The Queen is not truly recognised by us for the work she does, but by the title she holds. Do we treat her as we should treat another human being, or do we treat her as if she is just her title?

The philosophy of Sartre and Levinas will be used as they both put forward a theory of the Other. We have an effect on the others freedom for both philosophers.

For Levinas, it is getting away from Heidegger’s view that we encounter everything with its use value. We have a relationship and a responsibility over the Other.

For Sartre, is the Queen acting in Bad Faith? Rather than recognising herself beyond her duty.

So, does the Queen restrict herself from becoming an Other, or do we restrict the Queen from being treated as an Other truly should be?

Categories
2017 Abstracts Stage 3

BDSM, Power and Self-mastery: the strength of submission

Does power equate to dominance? Is there a strength in submission?

Categories
2017 Abstracts Stage 2

Money: A Social Network Ontology, Complimented by the Abstraction of Theoretical Monetary Units Throughout Time.

This project argues for Georg Simmel’s Sociological account of money through two means:

Firstly, its ability to explain changes in monetary theory through time.
Secondly, the fact it can explain a nuanced human economic agent in a social network.

Money in a Simmelite Social Network:

My project explored the account of the human subject in Simmel’s The Philosophy of Money and applied this to the network theory from Dodd’s The Sociology of Money. Thus, the essay was able to create and analyse a framework that could both argue for the creation of money through a tool of desiring subjects, and how this interacts with society at large through a societal network.

Changing Monetary Theory Through Time:
This project explores the history of economic philosophy from the enlightenment onwards through four defined periods.

Smith and Classical Economics – Using An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations I was able to explore monetary theory that is reliant upon substance, and the ways Smith’s economic theory often ends up with a reductionist view of human agency.

Friedman and Neo-Classical Economics – Using Capitalism and Freedom I explored monetary theory and the belief that money is simply an economic lubricant, while also contesting the fact that Friedman truly believes in the imperfect being.

Post-Modern Economics – Using Lazzarato, and his influences, I was able to analyse the idea that digitised economics represent power and the desire of the subjects in this network as the creation of this power.

Bitcoin and the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute – This conception of money is a commodity guided by the rules of blockchain, however Bitcoin itself is only substantiated by ideological belief of a small number of active traders.

Throughout this project I argue that the Framework of the Simmelite Social Network can not only explain the beliefs of these four types of theory through time, but also why the path of history towards further abstraction has occurred.

Categories
2017 Abstracts Stage 3

On Bunnies: An Interpretative Approach to Playboy in the Sphere of Art

PLAYBOY
The use of nude photography does not exclude a work from the sphere of art

Featured Articles

Rose: The Paradigm case of Pornography-Playboy does not possess the same explicit sexual characteristics of other ‘adult’ entertainment.
-In the production of Playboy, there is no violation of liberty or victim.

Noë: ‘strange tools’ -art is purely the subversion of function and purpose, that calls into question the surrounding presuppositions -Playboy does not have his same subversion intention.

Hegel- the closest instance to absolute truth within art is the human form “we must search out that in Nature which on its own merits
belongs to the essence and actuality of the mind…The human form is employed…exclusively as the existence and physical form correspond to themind” (Hegel, 2004)

Categories
2017 Abstracts Stage 2

The Rise of artificial intelligence and it’s implications for the constitution of personhood

My Territory: The territory of my essay is artificial intelligence; I will be looking at the progress it has made in the past decade, as well as the controversy it has sparked as a result.

My Object: My object is Sophia, a humanoid robot created in 2017 by Hanson Robotics Limited.

My Concepts: The main concepts I will be using in my project are: Human being, Personhood, Personal Identity, Persistence, Self-Ownership and Recognition

Philosophical Thinkers: The first philosopher I will be using to look at my territory is John Locke. I will be using his Essay on Human Understanding II, concentrating on his views on Personal identity. The second is Frederich Hegel; I will be looking at his Phenomenology of Spirit, particularly the sections on his theory of Recognition.

Main objective: I want to see if we would ever consider granting artificial intelligence the same rights as humans; to do so, I will be trying to find the necessary and sufficient conditions of personhood, and applying them.

Categories
2017 Abstracts Stage 2

“Where Flash Becomes Word and Silents Selfloud”: the Language of Finnegans Wake

The obscure, polysemic, multi-lingual, syntactically nonstandard style of writing in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake has polarised critics even since before the time of the book’s full release. The ongoing debates surrounding the work raise philosophical questions about the limits of language and the nature of art and literature. This essay explores possible philosophical justifications for using such a style, and enquires whether it might offer unique artistic possibilities, unavailable to clearer, more conventional styles.

Beginning from Heidegger’s theory of art, the essay explores the distinction between the Heideggerian concepts of “world” and “earth”, arguing that the book inverts the standard function of language as embodying a socio-historical “world”, instead turning it into a force which represents the “ungraspable”, impenetrable, nature of “earth”.

The essay then examines the Wake with reference to Blanchot’s work on literature, finding that the techniques of emphasising the physicality of language, as well as fragmenting a work into pieces whose only relation is difference – which Blanchot claims constitute are essential for a literary work to represent things in their “free, silent existence” – are utilised in extreme ways and to unique ends in the Wake.

Categories
2017 Abstracts Stage 3

Can we resolve the conflict between Art and Science

My object is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and my territory is the relationship between art and science. In my project I argue that the arts (and humanities) come into conflict with science (and technology). Richard Dawkins laments that in his view science does not get the same respect as poetry. Meanwhile Midgley claims that science attempts to colonise humanities with inappropriate methods. Habermas claims that science has ‘infected’ politics, ethics and philosophy. Warbuton argues that the concepts used to evaluate scientific research are applied to the arts as well, but are not fit for this purpose.
Lyotard looks at one of the causes of this conflict. Narrative has been the main way of transmitting knowledge, and is still used in the arts. However, science condemns narrative as no knowledge at all, since narratives are only legitimated by their general acceptance. Science, on the other hand, requires legitimation by empirical evidence, and must be able to justify and defend its claims against challenges. However, science can only justify and defend its claims by using narrative, so could itself be accused of begging the question by using a form it has condemned as not susceptible to legitimation.

Heidegger argues that technology, by treating human beings as a reserve, poses a danger to our very essence. Pirsig proposes care as part of the solution. Heidegger sees care as constitutive of humans, inextricably linked with human life and temporality. Pirsig’s version of care is what provides the creativity and imagination which he demonstrates is needed by science to come up with new theories and hypotheses just as much as it is needed by the arts. If this is accepted then care, creativity and imagination could provide the basis for a bridge between the sciences and the arts.

Categories
2017 Abstracts Stage 2

“Mrs. Dalloway. Not even Clarissa anymore; this being Mrs. Richard Dalloway.” Does Changing your Surname mean Forfeiting your Identity?

Object: ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ by Virginia Woolf (1925)

Aim: To discuss the implications of marriage in feminist theory and attempt to decipher if loosing your surname means loosing your identity.

How: Use main themes from the novel, modern articles, De Beauvoir, Woolf and Butler, Friedan.

Methodology: Structured with quotations from the novel. Therefore methodology is interpretive.

What are the implications of taking your fiancés surname/ marriage and how does Virginia Woolf’s novel ‘Mrs Dalloway’ connect us to these issues?