Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) was a French existentialist philosopher and a leading figure in the second-wave feminism movement. Beauvoir’s seminal book The Second Sex (1949) is widely considered as the first major study of women’s oppression in contemporary western feminist theory. The aim of my project is to examine Beauvoir’s central ideas in The Second Sex and subsequently demonstrate the topicality of Beauvoir’s manifesto on the feminist movement today.
Category: Abstracts
Life in La Esfera Doméstica: A Philosophical Exploration into the Role of Women in Spain During and After The Francoist Dictatorship.
Is rewilding compatible with veganism? Rewilding is a conservation effort which can contribute to the efforts of solving climate change. Due to the use of animals in rewilding, it raises questions for ethical vegans and so my territory is animal ethics. Through axiological critique, I intend to consider veganism from a deontological, consequentialist and virtue ethicist point of view and determine which is the best approach for practical matters, using rewilding as my object.
My project is an investigation into the ways in which the representation of women in politics by the media objectifies them and poses barriers to their success, this is explored through my key philosophers of Martha Nussbaum, Rae Langton and Kant who each propose a variety of forms of objectification. The way in which these notions of objectification impact the success of female politicians is demonstrated through empirical evidence of key political figures such as Jacinda Ardern and Angela Merkel. Through this investigation I reach the conclusion that the institutions of the government and the media are based on a patriarchal power imbalance and need to be reformed in order for women in politics to succeed without the harm of objectification.
This project will endeavour to explore the corrosive social effects of greed and capitalism. The territory is the subject of capitalism as a political and economic system as presented throughout history and also currently. The 2007 film There Will Be Blood (directed by Paul Thomas Anderson) is my object through which I shall spring the discussion of my project from, exploring the questions throughout and what they mean for us. I am using the works of John Locke (primarily his Second Treatise of Government) and Karl Marx (primarily his Philosophic and Economic Manuscripts of 1844). Locke explores the human right of private property and how one rightly comes to have ownership, and Marx explores the disproportionate and devastating relationship between capitalist and labourer and how such a relationship and work brings about alienation and estrangement from labour for the labourer. I shall compare the two philosophic ideas of Locke and Marx with reference to There Will Be Blood.
An investigation into the relationship between internet surveillance and panopticism, and how this impacts the identities of internet users.
Case Study – The Golden Shield Project: An in-depth look into China’s strict surveillance system and how it’s panoptic nature impacts Chinese citizens.
Key Theorists
Michel Foucault: Foucault provides a theory of surveillance that explains panopticism and demonstrates how constant surveillance, such as that seen on the internet, can be used as a tool for political power and oppression.
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975)
Zygmunt Bauman: Bauman explains why identity has become such a large issue in late modernity and why an identity is difficult to cultivate in the digital age, relating to internet surveillance and censorship online.
Identity (2004)
The issue of whether we can, and should, separate art from the artist is perennial. This project considers the question of separating art from the artist and assess the effects of commodification of art in respect to it. Looking at competing ideas of artistic interpretation and focussing on the approach of historical materialism, this project presents a Marxist view of art and places commodification at the centre of the issue. This project considers Adorno and Horkheimer’s contributions to the subject in the form of their theory of the Culture Industry.
This project found that the effect of the commodification of art was the separation and alienation of the artist from their art. It suggests that this separation and alienation is a necessary feature of production in capitalist societies. The concept of autonomous art is presented as a potential solution to this problem, being defined by its functionlessness and the idea that it cannot or is not commodified.
• My project shows the fundamental racism in the American judicial system that mirrors the attitudes of colonial times.
• Primarily using philosopher and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon and his book, The Wretched of the Earth, I show the link between colonial and judicial racism and how prejudice from the past is still alive today, and how this could have happened.
• The wrongful conviction of the ‘Central Park Five’ is my key case study as it reflects the broken system that colonialism upheld.
• I also address other matters of judicial racism in different countries as it is a worldwide problem, with reference to some other philosophical views and relations to Fanon.
• In exposing the issue, I address the changes, Movements, and positive progression that continues to eliminate racism from the world.
• However, I also highlight the remaining systemic and societal racism and how much more needs to be done to cure the sickness that it is.
• I found Fanon’s philosophy truly engaging, the more informed about the horrors and persecution of colonialism I became, the more my interest in its history grew as I still wonder how humanity can be so inhumane.
This project will be looking into the representations and models of beauty with a view of understanding whether they are inherently oppressive or liberating. The beauty industry along with the media industry have advanced in such a way that we see a correlation with the rise of beauty standards and a decline in mental health in women (and sometimes men) in society today. Furthermore, it will be Investigating as well as arguing whether the beauty industry is truly corrupting the minds of the younger generations or whether they are aiding the younger generations in finding their liberation. The findings showed that mental health is suffering greatly amongst the youth and there are numerous statistics to show links to social media platforms, especially those promoting vanity. Even conservative countries like Saudi Arabia give crucial priority to the western industrialised culture and hence embark on the westernised criteria of beauty standards. The philosophers touched upon in the project including Georg Hegel, David Hume, as well as influential feminist thinkers like Kathy Davis and Kathryn Morgan have demonstrated that the underlying deeper motive for women’s bodies undergoing so much exploitation is all a consequence of wanting the approval of the male species.
My project seeks to chart out an account of Dewey’s philosophy of education, relating to its practical application in the work of Lipman. I then present various current trends in the way that learning environments have changed both over the past few decades with reference to technological development, and in the last year with reference to the coronavirus pandemic. Ultimately, I argue that the main thing preventing a realization of Dewey’s democratic ideal is ‘datafication’, the phenomenon of reducing educational efficacy to quantifiable metrics and abstract information. Due to the insistence of Dewey and Lipman on education as a facilitation of meaningful experience, I hold, datafication makes the manifestation of any true practice of Deweyan pedagogy impossible.
The object of this dissertation is artificial intelligence (AI), and in particular it concerns AI risk or AI safety. I argue for the veracity of Bostrom’s orthogonality thesis (2012) – contextualised with reference to Hume’s (2007) is-ought distinction – and instrumental convergence thesis (developed initially by Omohundro (2008) in terms of the “Basic AI Drives”). In combination, what these theses show is that the default outcome of advanced AI (AGI and ASI) is existential catastrophe, and thereby the importance of ensuring that the value systems of advanced artificial agents are human compatible. I consider two main approaches to the value alignment problem – direct specification and value learning – and point out the flaws in each. While this project does not offer its own approach value alignment, the central concern of AI safety, it does emphasise the necessity for AI research to undergo a perspectival shift and focus on the search for one. The AI community should, that is, be concerned foremost with AI safety rather than AI capability.
This project aims to establish if cryptocurrencies are liberating, offering more political freedom. It will also consider if they’re a positive development for society. To do this it will answer several questions. Firstly, it will define what cryptocurrencies are and introduce key examples. Then it will consider if cryptocurrencies can be understood as money. By presenting a genealogy of money and following how money has evolved it will demonstrate how our intuitive understanding of money is flawed. Money is a social institution, used to represent credit as Henry Macleod suggests. It will discuss the social ontology of money further, introducing the works of John Austin and John Searle. This will demonstrate that money isn’t something inherently valuable, rather it’s an object with an assigned function that society holds a set of beliefs about. Therefore, digital tokens or cryptocurrencies could function of money. However, they’re lacking the trust money requires to be credible. This project will then question why we don’t trust cryptocurrencies. It will consider why we trust the currencies we use today. Ultimately, governments establish this trust, and they are put in a position to do this via the social contract. Cryptocurrencies have no links to governments and therefore lack this. However, by discussing monetary policy this project will demonstrate how governments take their power and control further, manipulating our spending to reach their own targets. This project will question if this could be the reason why governments vilify cryptocurrencies, are they doing this to maintain their own power? This brings us to our last question; can cryptocurrencies liberate us from this control? It will consider the possibility of establishing a techno-Leviathan. Could placing an automated self-sustaining system as sovereign grant us more freedom. Ultimately, this project will conclude that this would be politically liberating. Cryptocurrencies remove third parties from monetary exchange, limiting their control and granting an individual more freedom.
The study of death has been looked into in both scientific and theological terms. Something I wish to delve into is the philosophical discussion regarding death as the reason for human significance.
By using the works of thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Karl Löwith, and Karl Marx, I aim to discuss and compare the variety of ways in which death derives or disproves humanity’s ’innate’ purpose.
Death is presented to do this in Heidegger’s ahistorical argument through the death of nature– i.e. the death of our external world and the individual– in comparison to Löwith’s historical argument regarding secularised eschatology.
Marxist ideology and literature is considered throughout as this best relates to modernity.
Has the insurgence of Social Networking Services propelled us towards Jean Baudrillard’s concept of social hyperreality? Well, Jean Baudrillard would argue yes, social
networking services are bringing us closer to a state of ‘pure simulacrum’, where no real understanding of the world can be divined. Albert Borgmann would argue yes, but the issue is more complicated than this. Social Networking Services are a product of our desire in a postmodern Western landscape to integrate technological designs into our everyday life. We can complain, but we caused it! But Hubert Dreyfus would argue not necessarily but engaging on the internet is dangerous in the same way Soren Kierkegaard thought engaging with the press was once. We lose track of our sense of identity and conform too much! No matter who’s opinion you look at more, one thing is for sure, that social networking services hide more than they reveal.
In the contemporary world, which values accountability and justice, can we hold to esteem the art of individuals who have lived morally reprehensible lives?
Artists and their art are one, inseparable entity. The intentional act of creating art is to put an illusory part of oneself into the world, as in line with the philosophy of Nietzsche.
The feral Dionysian characteristic of artists has long been used to excuse morally reprehensible behaviour. However, due to the changing status of artists from remote, struggling characters into celebrities who are part of an elite world, artists are being held to a much higher standard of morals.
The main claim the project makes is that new digital media and the way they are used complexifies the idea of truth in political discourse in a way which undermines liberal assumptions. New media has become a fundamental object within liberal society; however, it has become a main source of the devaluation of facts. The purpose of this project is to explore how modern media have stimulated a debate on the concept of truth and falsehood in the conduct of political life. In order to do this, the project will draw upon the works of Kant, Lyotard, Habermas and Rawls.
For the past centuries, gender has increasingly become an important point of discussion. With changes to the law to allow women to vote, to changes in government documentation with the allowance of labelling of non-binary individuals, to the popularisation of those who do not follow typical gender identitys in media. There is even more important changes occuring within this generations lifetime that allow gender to become understood and a topic people are no longer afraid to investigate
Territory:
There are many theories behind gender and possible explanations for why people identify certain ways. From the first argument which began thousands of years ago in Ancient Greece by Aristotle, which was natural kinds, whereby all females or males share the same ‘essence’ which later became the biological determinist theory which explained that there are biological reactions that cause individuals to either identify as male or female.
This is compared to societal kinds which means that gender identity is formed and continued through society. Our relationship with friends, family and the outside world determines how we identify. This is the position taken by most post-modern philosophers such as Judith Butler, Erving Goffman, and Nancy Chodorow. Each have a different explanation of how gender is formed and each place emphasis on different aspects of the individual’s social life.
Drag is a tool for individuals to help them experiment with their gender and an aid for helping improve self-esteem. This was studied by Jessica Strübel-Scheiner who helps to show the impact of drag in individuals from the lgbtq+ community.
Objectives:
To gain a deeper understanding of how gender is viewed in modern day society, compared to that of historical explanations.
To understand how drag can not only be used as a tool to help people understand their gender but as a way of combatting the stigma behind gender as well as creating a new environment for gender to progress.
Bibliography
Aristotle. (1999). Politics. (B. Jowett, Trans.) Ontario: Batoche Books.
Bach, T. (2012). Gender Is a Natural Kind with a Historical Essence. Ethics, 2.
Barnes, J. (2001). Early Greek Philosophy. London: Penguin Group.
Butler, J. (2007). Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge Classics.
Butler, J. (2011). Bodies that Matter. Oxford: Routledge Classics.
Entwistle, J. (2007). Addressing the Body. London: Routledge.
Ereshefsky, M., & Reydon, T. A. (2015). Scientific Kinds. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, 969-986.
Mambrol, N. (2016, December 8). Nancy Chodorow and Feminist Psychoanalysis. Retrieved from Literary Theory and Criticism: https://literariness.org/2016/12/08/nancy-chodorow-and-feminist-psychoanalysis/
Manders, B., & Windsor-Shellard, B. (2020, September 1). Office for National Statistics. Retrieved from Suicides in England and Wales: 2019 Registrations: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/2019registrations#suicides-in-2019-by-english-region-and-wales
Millett, K. (1971). Sexual Politics. London: Granada Publishing Ltd.
Moi, T. (2001). What is a Woman? And Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Plato. (1952). Phaedrus. (R. Hackforth, Trans.) Cambridge: Cambridge university press.
Strübel-Scheiner, J. (2011). Gender Performativity and Self-Perception: Drag as Masquerade. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 12-19.
In my project I will be exploring and researching the concept of media impartiality, specifically in regard to political news stories, and whether news companies have a responsibility to produce impartial reports, or whether they have a right to express their opinion on their platform.
I analyse data and surveys conducted around the world in order to emphasise how present news media impartiality is in this day and age, and how detectable it is by the readers of the newspapers. This is an incredibly important subject as the news is more accessible now more than ever hence, it is more influential.
It will then be brought to light now influential the news is in the political world, seen in the images above, the Sun and Fox News, both owned by Rupert Murdoch. The Sun’s article claims responsibility for the 1997 United Kingdom election results, Fox news’ article states that the Unites States election of 2020 was rigged for Democrat Joe Biden. Both of these claims, made by the top newspapers in the country, sent tremors around the country causing backlash and violence, and ultimately mistrust in the media.
My approach in my essay is to cover the topic of media impartiality with reference to both 21st century philosophers and 17th/18th century philosophers.
I have chosen to do this, so the subject is widely covered by philosophers who address media impartiality directly; Diana Mutz and Joseph Mazor, and those who I apply their philosophical theorems to media impartiality; Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.
‘Journalism is the first draft of History’
I will conclude that partisan news companies do not need to adhere to as strict impartiality as non-partisan news companies as their reputation should reflect the view point the journalists will be taking when reporting on political issues. Whereas news companies who claim to be impartial must strictly follow this claim as people will rely on them for an even-handed report on political issues.
Totalitarianism and Technocracy: A Jungian and Huxleyan analysis of the Spiritual Problem of Modern Man, the distortion of Myth, and the path to Liberation
This dissertation shall focus upon the vital topic of authenticity in the modern world and examine and question how and why Autistic individuals such as myself are inhibited from behaving in an authentic manner in a modern neoliberal, capitalist society and how subjects can transcend this in the western world holistically. To do this, one shall explore the associating factors of deemed developmental disorders, health the notion of neurodiversity and neoliberalism practically and philosophically, which has developed significantly in the modern age. The modern-day usage of the term neurodiversity, socially and philosophically, can be applied to supposed “high functioning autism” as not a lifelong, debilitating disability and thus illness, but as a neurological form of diversity in an endless spectrum of diversity within the subjective, multi-faceted human experience.