The following project considers ‘memetics’ as a theory of the role of imitative dynamics in the genesis and development of human culture. This entails an exposition of memetics as the product of a series of conceptual transpositions between different practices and domains, which are tracked at length. Situating the object in question in the domain of fundamental anthropology (such circumscribing both cultural genesis and development), the concept applied to this object shall be René Girard’s ‘mimetic theory’ both with respect to its critique of a neglect of acquisitive, and therefore conflictual, mimesis pertaining broadly to theories of imitation, and its competing account of the function of imitation in the genesis and development of human culture. Having offset memetics with the theoretical conclusions of mimetic theory, the project shall conclude with an evaluation of memetics as an account of the role of imitative dynamics in human culture.
Category: 2021
The aim of this project is to look at consumerism, specifically consumer behaviour during the coronavirus pandemic and how it has evolved. The project will also explore how big tech companies such as Microsoft and Google are planning on using this for their own profit and power gain, whilst finally looking at some of the social and critical philosophy of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer to highlight how this might be problematic and the potential implications it holds for society as a whole.
The aim of this project is to determine if an approach which is based on trading off negative and positive liberty assess properly whether the lockdown was just or not? Within this project both positive and negative liberty will be measured within each theory. Comparing them whereby the positive sense protects life versus the negative sense in which our liberties are restricted. Both a Utilitarian and Hobbes social contract theory shall lean towards a more epistemologically positive approach to this. Through trying to give objective truths to measure the positive and negative liberties at play. While Badiou and Deleuze’s theory on the event shall offer a sceptical epistemological approach. They give a differing answer from a ‘simplistic’ objective approach. Finally, through Foucault and his biopolitics, we are able to highlight perhaps another force which is in play; power. Where in fact our pursuit for reintroduction of liberty is a paradox which was subsequently never there in the first place.
‘The End of History? Really?’ A Philosophical Investigation into Francis Fukuyamas work the End of history and the Last Man. With Reference to Hegel and Oswald Spengler
The Object of my study is whether Francis Fukuyama’s famous work ‘The end of History and the Last Man’ and the predictions made in it hold true today since the book was published in 1992. My dissertation therefore is centred around the Philosophy of History and which interpretations are the most accurate for describing the way in which history is manifests itself. The other two philosophers I shall look out is Georg Hegel and his dialectical approach to history and Oswald Spengler with his cyclical approach to History. I decided to do my dissertation on this as I believe we live in a very polarising time I was intrigued find out the significance of it on the historical timeline by investigating various view points written on it
Fukuyama in his book makes the bold statement that we have reached the end of history and what he meant by this is specifically is the end of ideology as Western Liberal Democratic traditions have reigned victorious for 100 years and have survived many potential coups by Communism and Fascism alike. Fukuyama states that humanity has reached a harmonisation with liberal democracy and their aren’t any contradictions in human life which cant be solved through its mechanism of government
Fukuyama’s conclusion is based on Nineteenth Century German Philosopher Georg work on the philosophy of History building on his dialectical process as the driving force of history. The ‘dialectical’ process sees that humanity reaching a final state after the Spirit in history which is in a state of conflict, producing a constant thesis and antithesis, finally resolving itself. Fukuyama believed that liberal democracy was the final synthesis from the thesis and antithesis conflict. Through out this section examine how much Fukuyama agreed with Hegel and where he veers off and goes in his own direction. I then Investigate whether liberal democracy still reigns supreme, I observe the fact that it is indeed still the primary mode of government in the western world however faith in it is faltering. This is highlighted by a Politico Survey which demonstrated Millennial’s are the most disillusioned generation ‘living memory’ in regards to faith in democracy.
Once examining Fukuyama, I go back into looking at Hegel in more detail, evaluating the circumstance that potentially humanity hasn’t reached a final ultimate synthesis yet as Fukuyama believes we have rather we are still in a state of dialectic. I look more deeply into Hegel’s idea of History being a manifestation spirit. The purpose of this is to help understand whether we are still in a state of dialectical process or not.
In my dissertation I move on to my final philosopher who looked at history in a completely different lens to Fukuyama and Hegel, German Philosopher Oswald Spengler. Oswald Spengler was one of the most famous and influential philosophers of the 1920’s, Times magazine famously said ‘When Spengler Speaks the whole world listens’. Spengler gained fame for his seminal Work ‘The Decline of the West’ which he considered to be a Copernican moment in the study of philosophy for history. Unlike the other two who viewed history as linear reaching a final point, he viewed history as the rise and fall of self contained cultures, their life span could be split into the 4 seasons. Spring being the rise of the culture, summer being the Apex, Autumn being stagnation and winter being the demise. According to Spengler the west had entered the Winter period and is in a state of decline which leads to it falling into a era of Ceasers aka dictators. This is at odds with Fukuyama’s belief that liberal democracy has won the ideological battle, hence why I included it in my dissertation. I go on to test the validity of Spengler’s prediction analysing the trump presidency as a possible example as well as using
The object of study for my stage three project is track and trace. In late 2019 the COVID-19 pandemic was reported as an unusual virus. At the beginning of 2020, the virus, now identified as a novel coronavirus began to spread throughout the entire world. Aside from a lockdown and a vaccine that had to be developed, the UK government invested heavily into a contact tracing system called track and trace. The aim of this system would be to trace who had come into contact with those that had testing positive for the virus so they could isolate and quarantine. Despite being heavily funded, track and trace has only a “marginal impact on transition of the virus”. This essay will be investing track and trace and what affected the way it was organised. By understanding it with reference to Deleuzian and Guattarian thought, it will be considered why track and trace was organised the way it was with a historical approaching using quantitative data and then why this meant track and trace was unsuccessful using an axiological approach. The territory in which the object will be considered is from political responses to catastrophes and centralisation.
In order to make this invested, this essay will attempt to give a broad description of Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of state form thought and nomad form thought and the rhizomatic, and then discussing whether it is relevant into track and trace. State form and nomad form thought is the outlining how the state has power not only explicitly through laws but also by giving itself a rational justification for its framework. By considering the war machine, an entity that exists outside the state, Deleuze and Guattari develop nomad thought in order to offer an alternative to state thought, which is used to critique how the UK state organised track and trace. The rhizome is Deleuze and Guattari’s description metaphysics where the world operates as a rhizome, meaning it is fundamentally decentralised. This will be used to critique the fact track and trace was centralised. Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus is used primary to develop these concepts and understood with reference Eugene Holland’s A Thousand Plateaus: a reader. Moreover, the essay uses information from the BBC and The Guardian to understand how track and trace worked and how successful it was. By considering this information, it will be investigated whether Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts are relevant to track and trace, considering how neoliberal policy affected how track and trace was organised, how sources advocated for centralisation in facing the COVID-19 pandemic, and finally whether Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts are relevant.
Progressively foregrounded precisely in its lack of coming to presence is the operation by which an individual’s human or non-human, inhuman, status is delineated. It is thus that the margin of delineation by which the propriety of a human being’s humanity is decided becomes questionable and prompts further reflection. Receiving its impetus from Martin Heidegger’s Letter on ‘Humanism’, the following essay shall take the ‘human’ as galvanized in the thought of Marcus Tullius Cicero as its object, foremost reflecting on the human is discursively constituted in the complementary texts De Republica and De Legibus. This essay thus contends that Cicero’s thought constitutes the exemplary object of the critique Heidegger’s letter poses, and as such provides an essential foil to Heidegger’s proposal as to how the notion of νόμος (nomos) should be uptaken in light of the truth of being.
What can the Philosophy of Zizek tell us about desire and ideology in current culture?
This essay shows key features of Zizek’s philosophy which show how desire influences ideology and how this can be illustrated through examining current culture.
I have used the examples of the musical Hamilton and The Extinction Rebellion protests.
Hamilton is a beautiful piece of culture to analyse using Zizek’s philosophy because it expresses powerful ideologies through music.
Extinction Rebellion is a wonderful organization that is trying to save the world. Zizek’s philosophy when applied to the reaction to XR is excellent in illustrating the powerful nature of ideology.
Ideology is a powerful and irrational force in the world, and nobody realises they are being duped by it, this is what my essay aims to argue.
Exploring Zizek’s philosophy through these pieces of current culture has given me a much greater understanding of the world around me.
Zizek is clearly an influential philosopher and his philosophy has interested me for a while now and it was a joy to learn about his work. His conception of ideology I believe is groundbreaking, I aimed to show this in my essay and I believe I have succeeded.
Tarot reading has gained a notable amount of popularity in recent years, but this does not align with the increasingly rational, post-metaphysical society of the West. Perhaps this new age scientific rationalism has proven too harsh for humanity, and there are calls to return to a more spiritual path. The individualistic nature of Tarot reading is much more appealing than the previous demands of traditional religion that once dominated society. Tarot reading may also be used as a therapeutic tool that can reveal unconscious desires for the future that have been repressed by the psyche, and through an act of projection onto the Tarot cards, we can reveal these true desires that are usually hidden from the surface.
The concepts that I will use to explore this question are Mele’s self-deception, Freud’s psychoanalysis, Jungian archetypes, Semetsky’s therapeutic hypothesis and the rationality of logical positivists.
Contemporary treatment of specific crimes (miscarriages of justice) reveals that early forms of vendetta are still present in our supposedly rational society, which may therefore result in the destabilisation of hierarchical power relations. The project uses the subsequent cases; the Birmingham Six (1974-75), the Guildford Four (1975), and the Maguire Seven (1976), to highlight how such a system of our judiciary systems’ necessity to our society can fail. The project uses MacIntyre’s philosophy, regarding narrative alongside Poyser’s academics, to suggest that through improved case narratives due to media involvement, the judiciary system is provided with the opportunity to resurrect their mistakes and in doing so improve the structural innerworkings of society. Further philosophical analysis of the media’s narrative regarding MacIntyre perhaps reveals how the victims are condemned due to how they have been treated by the judiciary system and the miscarriage of justice that they been involved. In thinking about one’s selfhood in terms of narrative, it is possible to review how the victim’s lives are changed for the worse due to their mistreatment. Moreover, use of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right feasibly aids the removal of historical discordancy around the concept of justice, which in doing so provides a clearer understanding of how violence in the form of terror and vendetta still become pertinent issues for our society. Hence, the project sets itself to reviewing the claim that contemporary treatment of specific crimes in the form of miscarriages of justice may in fact provoke the destabilisation of hierarchical powers such as our judiciary system due to the presence of repeated acts of violence in the form of terror and vendetta.
In my project I investigate the problem of modern politics, especially the absence of viable alternatives to our contemporary political system. I use climate change as an example of an issue that is limit testing the stability of the status quo. I use Marcuse’s concept of one-dimensional thought and Badiou’s ethical theory as examples of radical critique of stale political arrangement, and also thinkers inspired by them like Mark Fisher and his concept of Capitalist Realism.
This Project weighs up the positives and negatives of transwomen participating in elite level sport. The essay will be structured logically to allow for an in-depth argument. Firstly, empirically evidence will give an overview with an analysis of scientific research and public opinion. Following with philosophical input to give a moral and feminist stance on the matter. Overall leading to an overarching conclusion, that is, transgender women should be able to participate in elite level rugby.
The projects aim is to address the issue of fairness found in the negotiation process between the central government and Greater Manchester local governments. This issue of fairness stemmed from the overcentralised nature of the national government structure. John Rawls’s theory of justice will be used to rethink a fair deliberative position.
The territory of this project is the North-South divide which has been created from the regional inequalities which co-exist in England. Overcentralisation has meant these inequalities are not being addressed and this has created a feeling of unfairness among the North.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the issues found in the territory. The chosen object for this project demonstrates this as it explores the negotiations between Greater Manchester local governments and central government over COVID-19 financial support. Greater Manchester had minimal influence in these negotiations and believed this to be an unfair deliberation process and outcome.
So this project will address the issue of fairness with John Rawls theory of justice. It will provide a way to rethink the deliberative position to ensure a fair negotiation process and fair social circumstances under which an agreement can be made.
The aim of this project is to investigate the current counter terrorism dilemma concerning the targeted killing, using drone strikes, on British terrorists overseas. It will be explored through a Kantian perspective and criticised, ultimately arguing against Kant’s theories. The primary case study used throughout the project is on the 2015 Reyaard Khan killing, ordered by PM at the time, David Cameron. There are four subsections within the dilemma to be explored: firstly, whether it is morally sound to kill at all, then assuming for the purpose of the essay that it is, whether it is ok to do so without a fair trial. The project will also investigate whether the British Government should be killing British citizens overseas when the death penalty is illegal in the UK, and if they are not, should they be passing on intelligence to the US for the Americans to send the drones instead?
Project aims:
• To raise awareness of the dangers facing this and future generations, such as the mental health crisis and the existential threat to society.
• To offer real world practical solutions, such as legal/governmental legislation to moderate social media and by limiting our own social media use today.
• To create a challenge for myself, by applying 20th century philosophy to a modern-day concept.
Object/territory:
• Social media: The big six include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and TikTok.
• Smartphone generation or Generation Z is anyone born between 1995-2012, this is the first generation to grow up with social media.
Sources used:
• Consciousness, Art and Technology: Karl Barthes, ‘The Death of the Author’ and Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. The social media author is dead, and the cause is suicide.
• Kantian and Post-Kantian Philosophy: Sigmund Freud, ‘Instincts and their Vicissitudes’. There is a drive attached to social media.
• ‘iGen’ book by Jean Twenge notices children are growing up slower and are facing a mental health crisis.
• ‘The Social Dilemma’ documents how social media is deigned to addict the user and then sell their data on. This can then end up in the wrong hands.
Credit will, in all likelihood affect everyone at some point in their lives. Whether it be a student loan, a mortgage, a credit card or buying a car ‘on finance’, the possibilities are vast.
I will look at the ideas of Hegel, who subscribes to the view that it is property is the embodiment of freedom, as well as that it is essential to the development of one’s personality, individuality and Asking whether credit can be seen to enhance one’s access to private property and therefore enhance their freedom.
I will then look at Lazzarato, who explores the debtor creditor relationship arguing that everyone, in the neoliberal age, has become debtors through a process of subjectivation by their creditors. But is this the case?
Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance ethical? Examining the ethical and moral implications surrounding nuclear weaponry.
My intentions within this project are to explore the ethical implications of both nuclear weapon use and nuclear deterrence policy. Through the course of this essay, I examine the scientific explanations of how and why the atomic bombs, both first generation and modern, are so powerful and can cause such devastation. Further on, I examine the philosophical concepts of the Just War doctrine, the concept of “dirty hands” and also the political theories of Machiavelli, applying all three to the concept of nuclear weapons. I also make reference to the success of anti-war movements in the non-proliferation movement, and the impact that various groups had in the dismantlement of vast quantities of nuclear weaponry, and the signing of several treaties.
I was compelled to write this project by a pattern of observations relating to the nature of language that began surfacing in the works of various philosophers, after having read the work of Wittgenstein. To cite some examples, from Arendt: ‘language, the medium of thought’ ; from Breton: ‘the speed of thought is no greater than that of speech, and does not necessarily defy capture in language’ . From my own experience, thought always seeks to transcend the limitations of language, and sensation can never find its perfect expression in speech. Yet it is true that the principal method by which we communicate these thoughts and sensations is language, and further for Arendt, the internal communication of these phenomena through a dialogue with ourselves is the very thing that makes us human. These observations highlight a tension inherent in all of us. The desire to express our humanity enters into direct conflict with the limitations of language. The aim of this essay will be to discuss this conflict. I hope to highlight some of the functions of language in thought, and to establish the possibility of achieving genuine self-expression through language in spite of its inherently communitarian nature. This the nature of the topics discussed prohibits me from offering some definitive conclusion; the essay is intended primarily as an exploration of the paradoxical relationship between the necessity of language, and our desire to escape its limitations.
This project is about the topic of sports washing, in particular, sports washing in the area of Football. It aims to provide an answer to whether the practice of it may be justifiable or not. The project shall argue against it being justified using Kantian ethics vs utilitarianism argument whereas the essay shall side with Kant. The philosophers against Kant are Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. some keywords to describe this are Utilitarianism, Sports washing, Kantian Ethics, Human Rights, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Football.
The coronavirus pandemic in 2020 has affected thousands of lives in England and South Korea. The management of the virus has been difficult, in terms of creating regulations that the common people would be willing to follow.
The responses in both countries, however, were significantly different. It can be considered that due to the contrasting cultures and identities, the responses from the people and the management from the governments were influenced by such background frameworks that are the foundations of the priorities.
This suggests that in an individualistic or idiocentric country, the government will prioritise people’s liberty and the economy, thus placing more importance on individual lives rather than the collective, alluding to less consideration of those extremely vulnerable. In comparison to a collectivist or allocentric country, the government will prioritise everyone’s safety, and the people will respond with discipline, thoughtfulness and accepting of regulations, that could be deemed invasive, for the sake of defeating the virus and lowering mortality rates. By considering the cultural shaping of identities, the value of liberty is displayed, in which individualistic countries lean towards individual freedom than the collective safety.
This project explored the philosophies of Charles Taylor, Anthony Giddens and Zygmunt Bauman.
Other thoughts include the discussion of the East Asian Tradition, Confucius Ethics, with the sociological research of Geert Hofstede. The political and philosophical view of Robert Nozick will be utilised to understand the value of liberty.
We are, every one of us, mortal beings. Throughout the course of our lives we will deal with that knowledge and its consequences. We will suffer bereavement and loss. It is a universal condition, unavoidable and inevitable. Our mortality is what makes us human. We surround ourselves with habits and rituals to deal with that fact, and have since history began.
The modern funeral industry tries to hide that fact from us – we label funerals ‘celebrations of life’, insist that our loved one ‘passed on’, use deadly chemicals to preserve a body against signs of… well, death! The entire process seems stacked against allowing us any idea of what dying entails.
In this project I will use Martin Heidegger’s concept of the being-towards-death and Havi Carel’s ideas about ‘bodily doubt’ to explore how the crematorium as we know it today, of hidden steel ovens and pretty urns, contributes to the sanitisation of our understanding of death and mortality to the extent that we lose understanding of it, and fear it. In fearing it, we avoid it, and in avoiding it, we lose part of what it means to be authentically human.